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.