Does 'from' in this example mean 'some'?

Question

I have chosen for you from the best of our personnel.

Can 'from' here also mean 'some'?

I have chosen for you some of the best of our personnel.

Answer 1

Well, no, it doesn't mean that. You can replace "from" with "some" and get a grammatical sentence with very similar meaning, but the meaning is not identical: the sentence with from means that the speaker chose from among the best of the personnel, while the sentence with some means that what the speaker chose was a selection of the best personnel.

The actual results are probably not distinguishable, unless the "from" sentence refers to a single selected candidate, but they're saying different things; in the "some" version, the candidate pool is unspecified and may have included the full set of personnel, while in the "from" version, the candidate pool itself is restricted to the best personnel. And, of course, "some" cannot properly refer to a single individual.

Answer 2

No.

For example, a single person could have been chosen which would not indicate some were chosen, but that person would have been among the best.

Answer 3

To be clear, from doesn’t mean some, but you could make two different sentences that mean roughly the same thing:

I’ve chosen some of the best. . . .

or

I’ve chosen from among the best. . . .