The landscape of universal quantification in Old Hungarian
The landscape of universal quantification in Old Hungarian

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents the system of Old Hungarian expressions conveying universal or maximal readings, as found in Old Hungarian codices. The main empirical findigs are that (i) the OH suffix -keed could be a (temporal) universal quantifier. Expressions with such suffixes can help reconstruct quantifiers from the head-final stage of Hungarian. (ii) Old Hungarian had bare pronouns that acquired a bound, quantificational reading from long-distance operators. Against such a background, minden is claimed to be a quintessential strong D-quantifier: It could undergo raising, and its scope was flexible (within syntactic islands). (iii) These properties of minden are distinctive within the class of particle + indeterminate pronoun complexes (such as vala-ki lit. ‘vala-who’, ‘somebody’), which could be said to lack quantificational force.

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