There is a very large number of quantifiers in English, so many that i
t seems impossible that the only information that they convey is about
amounts. Building on the earlier work of Moxey and Sanford (1987), we
report three experiments showing that positive and negative quantifie
rs focus on different subsets of the logical possibilities that quanti
fiers allow semantically Experiments 1 and 2 feature a continuation ta
sk with quantifiers that span a full range of denotations (from near 0
% to near 100%) and show that the effect is not restricted to quantifi
ers denoting small amounts. This enables a distinction to be made betw
een generalization and complement set focus proper. The focus effects
extend to comprehension, as shown by a self-paced reading study (Exper
iment. 3). It is noted that the focus effects obtained are compatible
with findings from earlier work by Just and Carpenter (1971), which us
ed a verification paradigm, and in fact these effects constitute a dir
ect test of inferences Just and Carpenter made about mechanisms of enc
oding negative quantifiers. A related but different explanation is put
forward to explain the present data. The experiments show a quantifie
r function beyond the simple denotation of amount.