La quantification universelle en trio: tous les, chaque et tout

• Main Author: Georges Kleiber
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editura Universitatii din Oradea 2011-12-01
• Series: Studii de Lingvistica
• Subjects: quantification; totality; determiners; definite article; indefinite article; “free choice” article
• Online Access: http://studiidelingvistica.uoradea.ro/docs/1-2011/pdf_uri/Kleiber.pdf

This article revisits the well-known question of the quantification made by chaque, tout and tous les, that express totality or universal quantification, by focusing on a preliminary question: should we group the three quantifiers or not? Most frequently this is not the case: either chaque and tout are tackled together or chaque and tous les. It is advisable to group them first and to make a progressive internal differentiation from their common platform. The first part of the paper deals with the various aspects of the notion of totality associated with the three quantifiers. Then the question raised by the definite plural article les is examined. Finally arguments are given in favour of the separation of tous les from chaque and tout.