Taub's Generalization

English quantifier all can occur with collective activity and accomplishment predicates but cannot be used with collective state and achievement predicates. This generalization has been termed a Taub's generalization. Previously, Brisson (1998) has attempted to explain the generalization by claiming that activity and accomplishment predicates have a DO head while state and achievement predicates lack such a head. Discussing various problems concerning this approach, I will provide an alternative account. This paper will claim that English all exhausts the members of a sum individual,blocking a group individual. This is how the maximality reading of English all is generated. This claim can further explain Taub's generalization if we assume that collective state and achievement predicates require a group individual as the subject while collective activity and accomplishment predicates do not have such a requirement. This explanation can also be extended to account for the behaviors of English both.