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(1) The human body is 60% water.

Note that (1) means "60% of the human body is water".

In (1), 60% is a quantifier of the subject but resides within the predicate. Is this a type of quantifier float?

But I've never seen any reference (grammar or paper) where "x percent" is shown as an example of quantifier float.

If this is a valid example of quantifier float, please show me some reference. If not, please explain why it's not a valid example.

JK2
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    In case someone asks: https://www.ifioque.com/grammar/quantifier-floating This is the first time I have heard of a "quantifier float" – Mari-Lou A Jan 21 '24 at 10:37
  • Offhand, it seems to me the syntactic affordances of 60% are the same as those for [a] half, [a] quarter,... - which aren't the same as those for all, both, each,... – FumbleFingers Jan 21 '24 at 13:00
  • What is your definition of quantifier float? Quantifier float pertains to all, both, and each, where the quantifier can be moved away from its noun and into an adverbial position within the same sentence. – Tinfoil Hat Jan 21 '24 at 19:08
  • Such a terrible example given bodies and water. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 19:39
  • It's probably floating if the fat is 30% or more. – HippoSawrUs Jan 22 '24 at 04:04
  • @TinfoilHat Isn't the 60% moved away from its noun and into an adverbial position within the same sentence? – JK2 Jan 23 '24 at 00:17
  • Looks like you moved it to the subject position. In any case, if you have to add of, it’s not the same sentence, and it’s not a float. – Tinfoil Hat Jan 23 '24 at 00:29
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    @TinfoilHat If it's not a type of quantifier float, how would you explain its position within the predicate? – JK2 Jan 23 '24 at 00:52
  • Even though your examples might be semantically equivalent, 60% doesn’t function the same in both sentences. Here, all is floated: [All of those animals are horses. Those animals are all horses.] Here, most can’t float: [Most of those animals are horses. **Those animals are most horses.*] Same here: [60% of voters are angry. ? Voters are 60% angry.] And here: [A mule is 50% horse. **50% horse is a mule.*] And so on. – Tinfoil Hat Jan 24 '24 at 03:10
  • @TinfoilHat Thanks for the voters example, which shows that x% is not as freely movable. But at least in OP's case, it did float, didn't it? // The ungrammatical *50% horse is a mule just goes to show, I think, that 50% doesn't modify horse, which makes it more like a quantifier float, don't you think? – JK2 Jan 24 '24 at 04:55

2 Answers2

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This is not a case of floating quantifier according to "FLOATING QUANTIFIERS, PARTITIVES AND DISTRIBUTIVITY Jack Hoeksema University of Groningen".

The general distribution of floating quantifiers shows strong similarities with that of bound anaphora such as reciprocals and reflexives (as noted for example in Oosthuizen 1989). Thus, they require an appropriate antecedent within the same clause:
           

           (4a)       The kids were all happy that their parents had left.
           (4b)       The kids were happy that their parents had all left.

For example, in sentence (4b), the floating quantifier all must have the expression their parents as its antecedent, and not the kids.

  1. I am assuming that we can distinguish the use of all in (4) from its use in (i) below, were it means something like completely and can have a singular antecedent:

    (i)          John was all wet.

Note that "60%" does not have "the human body" for antecedent.

LPH
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  • Are you suggesting OP's 60% is like all in (i) where all modifies the adjective wet? – JK2 Jan 21 '24 at 10:30
  • @JK2 Yes, it seems a stretch. 'The human body is 60% water' is notionally part of a statement 'A consists of 60% X, 30% Y and 10% Z' say. This is very different from 'My body is hairy all over'. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 21 '24 at 10:35
  • The human body is 60% water. - grammatic. 60% of the human body is water. - grammatic. Inverting the copula - Water is 60% of the human body - grammatic. 60% water is the human body - not grammatic. This is normal for quantifier float, yes? And I hate the 4a, 4b example. all happy and all left are two different alls. It has to be all the kids and all left for this argument. Being all happy just means all of you is happy, not all of you are happy. – Phil Sweet Jan 21 '24 at 12:35
  • @PhilSweet grammatic makes me thing of grammatik. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 19:38
  • @JK2 That is what I believe; for instance, even if "50% wet" is not a proper formulation in some cases, "half wet with something" is found often enough, and there is a semantic correspondence between the two (both indicate a level of wetness). "Half" in both "half wet" and "half water" is an adverb, and so "60%" would have to be reckoned with as an adverb. – LPH Jan 21 '24 at 21:05
  • @PhilSweet It seems to me that "fully happy" is a possibility, but not the only one; I think that here it is implicit that are taken into account only those cases where context has it the other way. ("She knew that what Cassandra had said was true, that she was happy, that they were all happy." (Victoria Shorr); it is here question of the happiness of several persons, not of the intensity of each person's happiness.) – LPH Jan 21 '24 at 21:24
  • But (i) cannot mean "All of John was wet", because all in (i) directly modifies wet meaning "completely". In contrast, OP's (1) does mean "60% of the human body is water", and it doesn't modify water at all. – JK2 Jan 22 '24 at 00:08
  • @JK2 We have here correspondences that are less than ideal; what does it mean to say "John was all wet."? Certainly not that the matter John's made out of is wet; no, it means rather that John's clothes, while he is wearing them, are wet, or that john's skin is covered by water, and still, some other such thing that only context will make clear. If we select "John's skin was all wet." can't we say in an equivalent manner "All of John's skin was wet."? So, while your reasoning makes sense, it is not fully convincing. I agree even less with the possibility that "60%" does // (1/2) – LPH Jan 23 '24 at 01:28
  • @JK2 not modify "water". "60% water" is really an abbreviation for "water in the proportion of 60 parts per 100 parts of body weight"; this specifies a variable amount of water, which is still an amount. I can't understand then that in the abbreviated form there should be no determination of the noun "water". This being said, due to the complexity that you point out, and which could still be the cause for my statement to be partially wrong, I will remove it from my answer. Nevertheless, do not consider that as an end to the discussion, and add any essential comment if you like. (2/2) – LPH Jan 23 '24 at 01:29
  • Your answer's still based on the premise that OP's example is more like John was all wet. If 60% does modify water in the OP, why do you think 60% water is the human body doesn't work, as @PhilSweet noted earlier. – JK2 Jan 23 '24 at 02:08
  • @JK2 The main idea is that "60%" does not have an antecedent, not a similarity. // Why "60% water is the human body" is not correct has nothing to do with the question of float quantifiers, in my opinion, but is solely a matter of the particular nature of the predication: for instance, the sentence "the best student in the class is the first victim of the covid" you can interchange subject and predication in many cases; however in sentences like "the hamp is mahogany" the interchange can only proceed from stylistic inversion (emphasis); contexts justifying that are comparatively rare. – LPH Jan 23 '24 at 11:56
  • You have not shown that "60%" does not have an antecedent. – JK2 Jan 23 '24 at 11:57
  • @JK2 Right, perhaps I thought it was more or less evident, but that's a point to consider. Since "60%" can only be a part of the body, it can't stand for the body as a whole. – LPH Jan 23 '24 at 12:00
  • I don't understand. 60% here definitely means "60% of the human body". – JK2 Jan 23 '24 at 12:22
  • @JK2 I am sorry not to be able to exchange with you any longer; that will have to be the last comment addressed to you because from now on we should be diccussing in chat; as SO policies deprive me of chat exchange on all sites in reason of a one year exclusion from the FSE (as strange as that might seem (obvious policy in the way of ensuring that SO practices and moderator decisions shouldn't be the object of contestation); you can check my FSE account, which has been brought down to the reputation of 1. – LPH Jan 23 '24 at 16:05
  • @LPH All suspended accounts are locked at 1 point, your points will be restored at the end of the suspension period, see this. – ninja米étoilé Jan 25 '24 at 23:20
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I don't think this is a case of quantifier float, because unlike regular quantifier float, the 60% must appear adjacent to the substance noun. If we add more auxiliary verbs we can see this quite clearly:

  1. The students might have been all studying.
  2. The students might have all been studying.
  3. The students might all have been studying.

But the 60% cannot do this:

  1. The body might have been 60% water.
  2. *The body might have 60% been water.
  3. *The body might 60% have been water.

So I think that this shows that the percentage forms a unit with water and not the subject.

If we change the verb, the percentage is still possible, but the paraphrase with the subject isn't:

  1. This heavy cream contains 35% milk fat.
  2. #35% of this heavy cream contains milk fat.

We can also use a percentage+substance as a nominal modifier, where there is no subject for the percentage to have floated from.

  1. For this application, use a 40% alcohol solution.
Alan Munn
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  • Yes. Even 'Lettuce is largely water' pushes most POS schemas. Numbers are classed by many as distinct even from determiners (including subset quantifiers). Though equivalences like ⅖ = 0·4 = 40% illustrate that 40% is a number in at least some usages, 'the Elbonian's body is 0·4 water' is horrendous. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 21 '24 at 17:57
  • True, the position of 60% is not as free as that of all, both, or each. But it does denote the quantity of the subject the human body and still is separated from the subject. So it may not be a regular member of FQs, but why can't it be a peripheral member? 2. Just because all has a non-FQ usage as in John was all wet doesn't mean all cannot be a FQ in other sentences. By the same logic, what exactly do your examples 7-9 prove?
    • – JK2 Jan 22 '24 at 00:19