Distributive MOST

Romanian, Hungarian, and Icelandic are languages in which MOST allows the proportional interpretation when combined with count NPs but not when combined with mass NPs. In English, the same generalization is found with non-generic NP restrictors. In §2.2 the generic NP restrictors found with the English most are analyzed as kind-referring DPs. Section 2.3 argues that the observed ban on mass NPs cannot be explained by Hackl’s (2009) superlative analysis, nor by Matthewson’s (2001) entity-restrictor MOST. We propose that (in the relevant languages) proportional MOST is to be analyzed as a distributive quantificational Determiner. We show that the observed ban on mass NPs correlates with a ban on collective quantification. Finally, we provide syntactic evidence for the hypothesis that in Romanian and English the proportional MOST sits in Spec,DP and D°, respectively. It thus appears that the quantificational-determiner semantics of MOST correlates with the highest syntactic level inside the DP.