Hierarquia dos quantifiers

That's not exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks, tho.

PP, which quantifiers comprise the "greatest inherent tendency? Do many, several and a few comprise the "least inherent tendency"

I never have seen anywhere about quantifiers´ hierarchy, but there are plenty of stuff on quantifiers´usage, from which emerge a pattern (a gradation of sorts).

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Enjoy it.


few-x-a-few-t1252.html

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/ ... uantifiers

http://www.inglesnapontadalingua.com.br ... ittle.html

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/gram ... -few-a-few

http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/ ... uantifier/

In fact I don´t think of it in absolute terms, more on terms of polarization.
But then, if you (and I) wish something close to that, it would be that "Each" would have the greastest inherent tendency towards wide scope (i.e. the almost ultimate all-embracing quantifier, since we are talking about "one by one'' or "each member of a group withouth exception".

Conversely, "a few" would mean "the least inherent tendency" towards encopassing a wide scope of the group. In a way, ''scope" would be the length of the considered group.
So, "few" looked up on a Thesaurus would mean "scarcely any", or "a bit" etc. All in the sense of a scattered few.) Only that "a few" refers to a specifically known ammount.

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Why I cited "absolute terms" and why the "inherent tendency"?
Because the usage/interpretation of quantifiers can take a turn, depending on other factors. For example, many authors posit that lexical factors, linear order etc.

Ioup approach was "a grammatical approach", in which there was two possible scopes, on a 5-point scale (1=unambiguous wide scope indefinite, 5=unambiguous narrow scope indefinite). So, being a pioneer, her studies are cited and taken as a basis to other quantifier scope disambiguation (QSD) (scope prediction in Higgins & Sadock 2003’s terms).

http://people.ucsc.edu/~abrsvn/SUB16_quant_scope.pdf
http://www.skycode.com/lucho's/V_Valin_ ... eading.pdf



Again, I tried to keep it simple and concise. But then, academical parlance doesn´t leave much room to be like that.
And, other members of the Forum feel free to complement my reply and/or improve it; since I am making forays into higher education level, sort of.
And not even being my field (my wanna-be major was management - and I dropped out, unfortunately.)