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This question is a follow-up to this one. It relates to the use of a quantifier “all” in this sentence:

The lectures will give you a detailed explanation of the subject, but you may not be able to understand all [of it].

A native speaker (my English teacher) said to me that in this case 'all' must be followed by a prepositional phrase consisting of "of + pronoun".

At the same time, according to an answer in the previous post, we can say:

I like some of his paintings, but not all.

It explains: “Also like many other quantifiers, all may be used without a bound noun, in context, if the meaning is clear. All is not so common alone meaning "all of them" as some quantifiers, but it does occur".

So my question is, how can I determine whether I can use “all” in these sentences on its own or it must necessarily be followed by "of + pronoun"? Has it anything to do with the pronoun itself ("it" or "them") used in this prepositional phrase "of + pronoun"?

Thank you in advance for all your comments and answers.

Note: This question was edited due to the misuse of some grammatical terms, which lead to a confusing question.

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  • The question you’ve linked to has an excellent discussion on all as a quantifier by the late linguist John Lawler. It should not have been closed. Answers here could further that presentation.
    – Xanne
    Commented 2 days ago
  • Which are you asking about, "all" followed by a pronoun or "all of" followed by a pronoun?
    – Rosie F
    Commented 2 days ago
  • @Rosie F, I'm asking about "all" followed by a pronoun.
    – Ola
    Commented 2 days ago
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    @Ola You don’t actually mention all + pronoun at all in your question. That would be cases like all this or all those, which is completely different. You’re asking about all followed by a prepositional phrase consisting of of + pronoun.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented 2 days ago
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    Sometimes the preposition can be omitted. "All those" and "all you" are acceptable, at least colloquially in some circumstances. Note that the pronoun must be plural. But the OP is not asking about that, and the question as stated is confusing.
    – Wastrel
    Commented 2 days ago

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These are implicit partitives where a quantity has been established and now all with understood of... establishes which part of that quantity is meant.

However, we seldom have all with an implicit partitive interpretation, especially ending a clause - in that position it's much more likely to be read as everything or everyone in general than a part of the set introduced earlier: think sees all, knows all, one size fits all, love conquers all.

?There are so many laws that for a layman it is very difficult to understand all.

Would typically be rephrased as them all or all of them. Compare:

There are three thousand five hundred boys in this school, and all have been questioned thoroughly

?There are three thousand five hundred boys in this school, and we have thoroughly questioned all.

The second example has a parallel structure, which helps things out 'some of his paintings' / 'all [of his paintings]'.

I like some of his paintings, but not all.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with the pronoun it or them in particular as we could just as easily substitute this or that discourse in the first example.

The lectures will give you a detailed explanation of the subject, but you may not be able to understand all [of this / that discourse].

As a side note, 'of it' is not a pronoun, it is a prepositional phrase headed by 'of' and containing 'it' as a dependent.

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    Using all rather than all of it/them (as with the lectures or paintings) strikes me as literary or high-style, and I think in colloquial/spoken English, all of it/them is much more usual.
    – Stuart F
    Commented 2 days ago
  • Dear @DW256, thank you so much for your detailed explanation! I'd like just to clarify one point. You said that "all" ending a clause "is much more likely to be read as everything or everyone in general than a part of the set introduced earlier". I understand what you mean. But in your sentence ("There are three thousand five hundred boys in this school, and we have thoroughly questioned all") "all of them" in fact means everyone.
    – Ola
    Commented 2 days ago
  • Idem in my sentence ("The lectures will give you a detailed explanation of the subject, but you may not be able to understand all") where "all of it" means everything. So, as far as I can see, there is no big difference in meaning if we leave "all" alone. Could you please explain to me this point?
    – Ola
    Commented 2 days ago
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    @Ola “Everything or everyone in general” (my emphasis) means just that: everything, not just all of whatever you’ve introduced. “We have questioned all” isn’t supposed to mean that you’ve questioned everyone in the world, just all the boys at the school. ‘He knows all’ doesn’t mean he knows all parts of something you’ve previously introduced, but that he knows everything in the world there is to know. Sentence-final all usually has this absolute meaning, except if there is a parallel with some/none/any of [pronoun] that it can ‘piggy-back’ on.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented 2 days ago
  • I just sort of read it as an implied repeat of the previously mentioned object, changing the quantity (usually to all or none, but it can be some, or even 4, or a dozen).
    – davolfman
    Commented 2 days ago

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