Kol as a Universal Quantifier in Biblical Hebrew

The article explores the various uses of the Hebrew determiner kol in Biblical Hebrew, which occurs approximately 5,400 times in the Hebrew Bible. It analyses the distinctions between distributive and collective quantification, focusing on how kol interacts with different noun types and syntactic environments. While kol with indefinite singular nouns is universally distributive, its use with definite plural nouns can be either distributive or collective. The study also addresses contexts where kol interacts with definite singular nouns, indefinite plurals, and non-count nouns, comparing these uses with its descendant in Modern Hebrew. Using corpus-based examples, the analysis highlights semantic nuances, syntactic constraints, and the development of kol as a universal quantifier in Classical Biblical Hebrew prose.