• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.253-287
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• 2014

In First-Order Logic the English expressions, 'any', 'every', 'all', and 'each' are treated on a par but have different meanings in the natural language usages. Especially the expression 'any' is typically used only in the negative contexts, which linguists have paid attention to and attempted to provide an adequate explanation of. I shall show that the explanations so far mainly from linguists are not satisfactory and revive the philosophical insights concerning the logical features of 'any' provided by Zeno Vendler in 1962. I shall claim that the expression 'any' has what Vendler calls the 'freedom of choice' as its primary meaning and denotes what Kit Fine calls an 'arbitrary object'. It will be shown that the logical features of 'any' are manifested more evidently in the analysis of the Korean expression 'amwu'. I believe that this analysis has significant philosophical implications. As an instance I shall show that we can take a fresh perspective on the problem which involves the universal generalization rule and the preface paradox.