Rescher (1962) and the Semantics of “Most”

Abstract Rescher (1962) showed that “most” could not be reduced to the universal and existential quantifiers, effectively disproving the idea that semantics can be indirect truth-definition by paraphrase into first-order quantification theory. But a truth-definition, according to a footnote added in 1984 to “Truth and Meaning” must be a modal theory, supporting counterfactuals about the truth-conditions a speaker's merely possible utterances would have. A subjunctive truth-definition, with predication supplemented by two complex predicate-formation primitives devices and a propositional function abstraction operator, both adapted from Stalnaker's work, yields a theory of semantic form that is directly Tarskian. The truth-conditions of every expression in the object-language are given by an expression in the meta-language. The theory involves no paraphrase. We apply that theory to comparative predicates, including the quantifiers “much” and “many,” their comparative “more,” and their superlative “most.” “More” is a dual quantifier of which “most” is the general case. “Most” is a most interesting adverbial predicate, with applications beyond modifying a propositional function to yield a quantifier phrase.