Based on the well-known but less studied patterns of quantifier structures in Korean, this article claims that floating quantifier constructions and their non-floating counterparts are underlyingly distinct and that the bifurcation follows from Chomsky’s (1995) economy principle of derivations. This analysis of quantifiers has important consequences for several issues and phenomena, including scope facts, presence or absence of floating numeral quantifiers across languages, and pronominal alternations in English. It also has theoretical implications of eliminating the concept of pied-piping from grammar, a desirable result under the minimalist tenet of economy.

Bošković (2004) argued that a quantifier cannot float in θ-positions in English, German and other several languages. In this paper, I strengthen this generalization by offering an independent set of arguments from Korean and Japanese. It will be shown that floating numeral quantifiers in these languages pattern precisely like the quantifiers in other languages, so that they only occur in non-θ-positions. Notwithstanding these gratifying results, several gaps in the generalization remain to be explained. In this paper, I argue that these and other related questions are adequately resolvable under the DP Split Hypothesis, proposed by Takahashi and Hulsey 2008 (see Sportiche 2005 for a similar argument), the essence of which is that A-moved subjects need not have a full set of DP in θ-positions. More specifically, an FQ cannot occur in θ-positions because there is no complete DP to which it can be merged in θ-positions. It can only occur in non-θ-positions when a full-fledged DP is available.

Quantifier floating (Q-floating) displays interesting asymmetries in English. First of all, there is a subject/object asymmetry. The subject permits Q-floating, whereas the object does not. However, if the object is followed by a predicative constituent, Q-floating can be permitted. In this case, there is another subject/object asymmetry. If the object is followed by a constituent that bears a predication relation with it, Q-floating is permitted, If, on the other hand, the object is accompanied by a constituent that bears a predication relation with the subject, Q-floating is not permitted. This paper shows that the various types of asymmetries follow if (i) Q-floating is licensed when A-movement takes place (Sportiche 1988), (ii) object can move to SPEC-V (Chomsky (2008, 2013, 2015), but in simple transitive constructions raising of the object to SPEC-V is prohibited by an anti-locality condition, and (iii) the movement theory of control is correct (Hornstein 1999, 2001).