The many splendors of any

In linguistics and philosophy it is often the little words that cause the biggest problems, and by this measure any is a very little word. Controversy over its interpretation has raged since at least the mid nineteenth century, and recently has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, where the split 5–3 decision in Small v.US (No. 03–750, 2005) turned on the precise interpretation in US statutory law of the phrase convicted in any court. Given the narrowness of this decision, there appears to be no end in sight to the dissent this one little word will occasion. Still, there may be hope for some resolution to one old persistent problem.

Any is, as Vendler put it, “a many-splendored thing” (1967: 79). The question is just how many splendors are there and how, precisely, are they related? At the most general level, the splendors of any appear to divide into two major spectra. Polarity sensitive (PS) any, as in (1), occurs almost exclusively with mass or plural nouns in the scope of a polarity licensor and lends itself to analysis as an existential quantifier. Free-choice (FC) any, as in (2), combines with singular count nouns and has a range of uses in modal, generic, and habitual contexts where it expresses a kind of reckless generalization – referring in a way that has been variously called arbitrary, random, free, or quodlibetic (e.g. in Tovena & Jayez 1999 ; Langacker 1991; Vendler 1967; and Hamilton 1858, respectively).