Sentences with disjunction in the scope of a universal quantifier, Every A is P or Q, tend to give rise to distributive inferences that each of the disjuncts holds of at least one individual in the domain of the quantifier, Some A is P & Some A is Q. These inferences are standardly derived as an entailment of the meaning of the sentence together with the scalar implicature that it is not the case that either disjunct holds of every individual in the domain of the quantifier, ¬Every A is P & ¬Every A is Q (plain negated inferences). As we show, this derivation faces a challenge in that distributive inferences may obtain in the absence of plain negated inferences. We address this challenge by showing that on particular assumptions about alternatives, a derivation of distributive inferences as scalar implicatures can be maintained without in fact necessitating plain negated inferences. These assumptions accord naturally with the grammatical approach to scalar implicatures. We also present experimental data that suggest that plain negated inferences are not only unnecessary for deriving distributive inferences, but might in fact be unavailable.

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Any has a more restricted distribution than other determiners. While it is uncontroversial that providing an adequate description of this distribution requires recourse to semantics, a full description has remained elusive. This holds, in particular, due to the intricate behavior of any in modal and non‐monotone environments, where sensitivity to extra‐grammatical factors is sometimes attested. Drawing on the insights of Kadmon and Landman, and on independently motivated mechanisms in grammar, we show that such descriptive challenges can be answered without abandoning a uniform treatment of any across the different environments. The resulting picture falls naturally out of an approach that takes any to be accompanied by covert even. There are two parts to this review. Part I attends to the distribution of any in entailment‐reversing and modal environments. Part II turns to an explanation of this distribution, its predictions about the distribution of any in non‐monotone environments, and to differences between any and some allied expressions. The review concludes by pointing out several open questions left for future research.

The ellipsis of a VP whose antecedent contains an occurrence of so-called free choiceanyis highly constrained: it is acceptable only if the elided VP is appropriately embedded. We show that while this is unexpected on the common approaches to free choice and ellipsis, it is predicted on a theory ofanythat takes its domain to stand in a dependency relation with a c-commanding alternative-sensitive operator (cf. Lahiri 1998, Focus and negative polarity in Hindi.Natural Language Semantics6(1). 57–123) and that takes free choice inferences to be generated by covert exhaustification in grammar (e.g., Fox 2007, Free choice and the theory of scalar implicatures. In Uli Sauerland & Penka Stateva (eds.),Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, 71–120. Palgrave Macmillan; Chierchia 2013,Logic in grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press).