English usage: Every vs all?

If you can get it, you should read Zeno Vendler's article "Each and Every, Any and All," (originally published in Vol LXXI, no. 282 of Mind, April 1962; and reprinted in his 1967 book Linguistics in Philosophy).

Vendler goes through this set of English quantifiers and shows their differences and similarities. I don't have my copy handy, so I'll just list a few differences here. These are all universal quantifiers, by the way.

  • Although they are semantically plural, each and every are grammatically singular,
    while all is grammatically plural.

    • Each student has a passing grade.
    • Every student has a passing grade.
    • All students have a passing grade.
  • each and all are subject to Quantifier-float, but every isn't.
    (Note that Q-float with each requires a plural subject and verb, instead of singular.)

    • Each student passed the course. ~ The students each passed the course.
    • All students passed the course. ~ The students all passed the course.
    • Every student passed the course. ~ *The student(s) every passed the course.
  • as quantifiers, each, every, and all have quite different determiner constructions.

    • all men, all the men, all of the men, all of them, all N of them (N > 2)
    • each man, *each the men, each of the men, each of them, each one of them
    • every man, *every the man, *every of the man, *every of them, every one of them.

... and, as lagniappe, all, with N = 2, is a quantifier and floats, but doesn't use all. Instead of *all two of them, we say both of them; instead of *The twins all left we say The twins both left.


It's a matter of number agreement. Either of these are acceptable:

Every field must be supplied.

All fields must be supplied.

You could also say each field must be supplied.

I must say that I disagree with field and supplied together. The user is supplying information, not fields. May I suggest:

Each field/All fields must be completed?