NPI 'any' in the scope of 'exactly n'

Abstract

Both the 'even' theory of NPI 'any' (Crnič 2011, 2014a, b, 2019a, b) and the exhaustification theory (Chierchia 2013) argue that 'any' in non-monotonic contexts lexically requires an 'even' operator to be felicitous. A counterexample to this argument is observed. In order to account for the counterexample, this paper proposes that 'any' in the scope of a non-monotonic operator in the surface structure is actually located in the restriction of a definite plural description in the logical form. Assuming the generalized definition of Strawson-entailment (Guerzoni and Sharvit 2007; Gajewski and Hsieh 2014; Gajewski 2016), the proposed theory maintains Strawson-downward-entailingness as a necessary condition for the felicity of 'any' even in the cases where 'any' occurs in the scope of a non-monotonic quantificational determiner like 'exactly n'.