A Defense of T – Any
By Jackson Lallas
“T – Any” is probably the most important debate about what the aff can defend on the Jan/Feb topic. For context, the current resolution is “Resolved: Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech.” The T – Any debate questions how we should read the word ‘any’ in the resolution. One reading believes that any means all. This interpretation would require the aff advocacy to allow all constitutionally protected speech to occur on public colleges and universities. I’ll refer to this interpretation as the negative interpretation in the article.
The other believes that any can be read as an existential. This means that the resolution could be understood as: “Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not prohibit at least a part or single aspect of constitutionally protected speech.” This interpretation allows the aff to defend only removing prohibitions on a type or method of speech. By type I refer to content – for instance hate speech – and method I refer to ways of speaking such as publication in journals, verbal communication, free speech zone restrictions, etc. I’ll call this interpretation the aff interpretation throughout the article.
This article will attempt to defend the common negative position on this debate. Unlike other justifications for T – Any, I won’t be focusing much on semantics[1]. I think the semantics issue is trivial on this topic. It’s obvious that any refers to all constitutionally protected speech, so the broader interpretation is most consistent with the wording of the resolution. While I will begin by going over this debate, the bulk of the article will focus on pragmatic arguments justifying a broader interpretation.
As a caveat, I think general arguments surrounding spec good / bad, plans good / bad, and other similar issues are much stronger on some topics than others. Given the wide range of LD resolutions all the way from hyper specific to broader than some policy topics, topic-by-topic analysis is important. That’s why this article looks into the debate around T – Any instead of the broader spec or plans debates, and many arguments here won’t apply to different resolutions.
I. The Semantics of Any
There is a lot of debate about the meaning of the determiner any. In rounds the issue tends to be whether any is used in the universal or existential form[2]. Consider these sentences:
(1) Did you debate any debaters?
(2) Any debater could win that round.
In (1) any seems to function as an existential. If you debated at least one debater, you would answer yes to the question. However, (2) operates as a universal – pick any debater and they should be able to win the round.
A good rule of thumb for telling the difference between a universal and existential any is the ‘almost test,’ (See Carlson 1981, and Kadmon and Landman 1993). Almost can only modify universal determiners (Kadmon and Landman 1993). Consider:
(3) Did you debate almost any debaters?
(4) Almost any debater could win that round.
We see that (3) is incoherent, but (4) still makes sense. (4) now has a smaller scope than (2), as some debaters would not be able to win the round.
Using the almost test, it’s clear that our current topic is an example of the universal any:
(5) Public colleges and universities ought not prohibit almost any constitutionally protected speech.
Though awkward, this sentence has a clear meaning. It reads: “With a small amount of exceptions, constitutionally protected speech ought not be prohibited by public colleges and universities.” Since the resolution passes the almost test, we know that it uses any as a universal determiner. This demonstrates that the semantics of the resolution favor a generic reading, as we would intuitively expect.
I will note that there is debate about the meaning of a universal any. However, I have not encountered an article advocating for a model allows the affirmative position to be the more accurate reading of the resolution. There is a lot of literature on the semantics of any and some of the articles are 300 + pages long, so it’s possible I missed something.
Another semantic justification for the negative position comes from the ‘widening effect’ of any (Kadmon and Landman 1993). Consider this example, slightly modified for clarity from Kadmon and Landman:
(6) Owls hunt mice.
(7) Any owl hunts mice.
Although both sentences are generic, they conclude that (7) rules out exceptions more strongly than (6). (7) applies to more cases than (6) so it is a broader statement. From an intuitive perspective, this happens because the determiner any emphasizes a statement’s generality. Now consider the following sentences:
(8) Countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power.
(9) Countries ought to prohibit any production of nuclear power.
(10) In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned.
(11) In the United States, all private ownership of handguns ought to be banned.
(12) Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict constitutionally protected speech.
(13) Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech.
There are two observations to be made here that support the negative side of T – Any. The first is that (12) and (13) are analogous to the construction of (6) and (7), so the widening effect indicates that (13) applies to a larger quantity.
The second is that the use of any seems to be very deliberate. Our past resolutions (8) and (10) were general statements that omitted universal determiners. The current topic does use a universal determiner, but clearly not for a grammatical reason as it could have easily been written as (12). The choice to use (13) deviates from this trend and highlights the fact that any should increase the scope of the topic. The existential interpretation treats any as superfluous and reads (13) in the same way as (12). (9) and (11) help illustrate why this choice is so significant; we read topics with universal determiners differently than the general versions omitting them.
Thus, it’s clear that the semantics of the resolution mandate the negative interpretation. Since the focus of the article is about introducing a pragmatic defense of T – Any, I won’t go into reasons why semantics matter for topicality. If you want to learn more about semantics vs pragmatics, Nebel’s “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics” and Overing and Scoggin’s “In Defense of Inclusion” provide great starting points. With semantics out of the way, I’ll now offer some pragmatic arguments in favor of my position.
II. Pragmatic Justifications for Any Means All
In this section I will cover the two main pragmatic arguments in favor of T – Any: ground and limits. There are other arguments, but most are offshoots or spins on these two. Also, the ground and limits arguments are closely tied to the topic while others tend to be more generic.
a. Case Neg Scarcity
Whenever the aff strategically chooses an advocacy, it is a given that aff ground improves. The aff gets to exclude many neg positions and defend the best slice of the resolution. There’s also the frontlining advantage in only having to defend one plan while negatives need to be ready for a variety of cases. On many topics this is fine or even required. For instance, whole res debate could be impossibly vague or hard to defend. The neg could also get a ground boost in return to even out these advantages. Perhaps the aff plan will give the neg DAs about implementation, is too narrow so that an advantage CP easily solves it, or strengthens links to core generics.
But this is not the case on the current topic. Specification dramatically improves aff ground while limiting neg options. As this section header suggests, there are few case negs in quantity and quality. Allow me to explain.
Almost every neg position comes from one of three topic areas: hate / offensive speech, protest, or generic kritiks of free speech. The first is by far the broadest category, encompassing the hate speech DA, revenge porn DA, title IX DA, offensive speakers DA, alt right DA, anti-Semitism DA, counter-speech kritiks, positions about safe spaces, etc. Negatives occasionally read positions against protest, most prominently the endowments DA and heg DA. Lastly there are some kritiks of the concept of free speech itself, the cap K being the best example.
That’s pretty much it. Despite the current topic’s broadness, my experience researching, judging, coaching, and looking through the NDCA wiki indicates that there are very few arguments beyond these in favor of negating[3]. Many arguments against free speech are already excluded because the resolution includes the words “constitutionally protected.” That’s not to say the remaining neg arguments are bad – some like hate speech are very well defended in the literature. What’s worrying is that in the big picture there are only a few ways to argue against free speech. These lines of argumentation quickly dissipate when talking about specific speech. This effect skews ground in favor of specific affs.
The quality of neg ground is inversely correlated to the aff’s instead of roughly equivalent. Consider having to defend absolute free speech. There are good arguments in favor of it – the marketplace of ideas and individual liberty – but also strong counter arguments such as libel, hate crimes, and harassment. Now narrow that to constitutionally protected speech. The same market place and liberty arguments apply, but the objections have either disappeared or become much weaker. For instance, hate crimes and harassment have been narrowed to just hate speech while the libel objection is altogether gone. Now narrow it again to just constitutionally protected speech in college newspapers. I would argue that the ground in favor of this speech is even stronger than the ground favoring absolute or constitutionally protected free speech.
Speech in newspapers serves vital, easily articulable functions such as the ability to criticize institutions, share events with other students, give people a voice, etc. These impacts are much more powerful and persuasive than the philosophical benefits of free speech in general. In contrast, the arguments against this speech are much weaker. There’s only a small link to hate speech style arguments about offensive publications and potentially a small link to kritiks of free speech.
As the type of speech in question gets more specific, it tends to be much easier to defend allowing that speech than to raise arguments against it. Of course this does not hold when talking about libel or hate speech, but these counter examples aren’t relevant because affirmatives will only select desirable ground. Unless the aff makes a massive strategic error in selecting their advocacy text, plans under affirmative interpretation of T – Any skew the round heavily in favor of the aff.
The ground argument thus far is still incomplete. It could be the case that specification is necessary to offset bad aff whole res ground or general disadvantages to affirming. More specific variants of these arguments, such as the pics objection, will be covered in a later section. For now I’ll address this concern at the general level. First note that the work done above shows that the negative incurs a substantial ground loss when the aff violates T – Any. When comparing the difficulty of affirming to the limitation of neg ground, the neg comes out ahead. Affirming may not be easy but negating against these affs is too hard to justify the tradeoff.
However, this objection needs to be covered in more depth. If the ground loss from violating T – Any turned out to not be that bad then the weighing argument would not hold. My next response to this argument is that the premise that whole res leaves the aff with bad ground does not apply. As a society we overwhelmingly favor free speech and there are years of defending it in the literature. Things like hate speech have been heavily covered through controversial Supreme Court cases in the past (Skokie comes to mind) and free speech on college campuses has been a big topic in the literature from the 90s to the present. It seems clear that the aff has plenty of arguments to choose from and also that there has been a dialogue among scholars which can help answer common negative positions.
There is also a side bias component to this argument. Is affirming is hard enough that the aff needs to be abusive to win? I think this question is worthy of an article by itself given how prevalent it is, so for the sake of brevity I won’t go into too much depth on it here. Firstly, I think this response misdiagnoses the problem. Affirming is hard because it requires more work to write a good aff and know how to execute it well. Much fear about affirming could be alleviated by doing more work.
I also think that the difficulty often comes from non-substantive concerns. Theory and Kritiks have been classically hard strategies for the aff to deal with. It’s layering more than any neg substantive advantage that causes the problem. Specific advocacies are a misguided way to address the issue. Lastly I don’t think that affirming is that difficult on this topic. Almost any theory interpretation against a whole res aff is frivolous and stock aff arguments interact well with kritiks. The set of neg arguments on substantive is already not super expansive which makes it very manageable to prep them out. The high quality whole res ground mentioned earlier also helps answer this argument. Side bias statistics would be helpful in gauging the accuracy of this argument.
The argument in this section is working under the assumption that the aff chooses an advocacy that has responses to it. The aff could potentially defend advocacies that are truisms. Examples include “Public Colleges ought not prevent students from submitting research papers” or “Public Colleges ought not prevent minority students from speaking.” This is another common ground argument made to support the negative position, but I find it much weaker. It is easy to avoid this objection by having a smart counter interpretation or advocating for other ad hoc limitations. These affs are also not inherent. But the broadest version of T – Any would include them, so this could be a good way to answer poorly formed counter-interpretations.
Thus specification poses a unique harm on this topic. The conditions that justify specific affs are not present and there is a significant ground loss for the negative.
b. Limits
LD has had its share of deeply under-limited topics, such as environmental protection vs resource extraction, nuclear power, and beneficence. But under the affirmative interpretation, this topic is just as bad if not worse than many of them. The existential reading includes cases such as ones that specify a single type of speech or mode of communication. Even if we apply further limits, such as requiring the aff advocacy to get rid of a specific speech code, there are still far too many affs.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) provides some helpful statistics that demonstrate the scope of the resolution. In their 2017 survey of speech codes, they reviewed at 345 public colleges. 33.9% of these schools had a red light rating. Using the data provided, we can also see that about 59% of public colleges surveyed had a yellow light rating.
To put this in perspective we need to understand the methodology behind the survey. FIRE defined a red light rating as: “A red light institution is one that has at least one policy both clearly and substantially restricting freedom of speech, or that bars public access to its speech-related policies by requiring a university login and password for access.” A yellow light rating is slightly more complicated: “A yellow light institution maintains policies that could be interpreted to suppress protected speech or policies that, while clearly restricting freedom of speech, restrict only narrow categories of speech . . . Yellow light policies are typically unconstitutional, and a rating of yellow light rather than red light in no way means that FIRE condones a university’s restrictions on speech. Rather, it means that in FIRE’s judgment, those restrictions do not clearly and substantially restrict speech in the manner necessary to warrant a red light rating.”
But maybe these limits aren’t so bad – what if these universities only have one policy that caused the red or yellow light rating? These are the assumptions that the aff interpretation would need to make and they are far too generous. Realistically, these schools have multiple codes that FIRE takes issue with. There are also roughly 1600 public colleges in the United States. The survey only looks at 345. When you combine these facts, the number of possible affs just about speech codes is likely in the hundreds and maybe thousands.
Keep in mind that speech code affs are only a subset of those allowed by the aff interpretation. In reality there are more ways to limit content of speech and modes of communication, a common example on this topic being free speech zones. The aff interpretation would allow for these too, which makes it even more under-limited.
There’s already plenty of literature about the impacts of under-limited topics, but to name a few: rounds have less clash and substantive engagement, new debaters have a harder time joining the activity, negatives design strategies that moot the aff as an alternative to doing research, more topicality debates, etc.
The limits, ground, and semantics arguments cover the bulk of the justifications for T – Any. Most other standards seen in rounds are either more specific variants of these arguments, such as Field Context expanding on semantic lines of justification, or use similar warrants, a common example being predictability standards in place of limits. With these arguments in mind, I’ll now cover the main objections to the negative side of T – Any.
III. Frontlines for T – Any
a. The pics response
One argument that has exploded in popularity as a response to Nebel T and now T – Any is the notion that the neg can read pics against whole res affs. The reasoning is as follows: “If the aff is whole res, then the neg can easily pic out of 99% of the case. For instance the neg could read a pic only defending one speech code.”
One problem with this argument is that it is self-referential. If the aff would not be able to engage a pic defending only a single speech code, how should the neg be expected to engage an aff that criticizes just one code? In essence, the abuse story that the pic argument paints is that neg pics will be under limited and have little ground to engage them on. The same reasoning applies to specific affs.
Given how prevalent this argument is, it’s controversial to suggest that the abuse caused by a specific aff and reading a pic are similar or roughly equal. So I’ll spend some time going into the specifics. First consider potential ground loss. Specific affs significantly limit neg ground; the neg can only defend one type of speech restriction. This is the same for a 1AR answering a pic – only one type of speech is relevant. A smart aff will also include arguments in their case that indict any restrictions or ban of speech in general to help offset ground loss. Also keep in mind that there are only few arguments in favor of the pic, since it is so similar to the aff, so there won’t be too many different arguments to answer in the 1AR.
But reading a pic could still be worse if they are less limited than specific affs. For instance, many believe that inherency is a side constraint on the aff but not the neg, which could allow for more pics than specific affs. Solvency advocates help even things out. In theory there could be more pics than affs, but many of those won’t have any literature. Likewise, most authors who criticize speech codes do it because those codes are currently being used, so inherency might not provide much of a limit on specific affs.
Lastly reading a pic could compound some other neg advantage, which makes the pic more abusive than a specific aff. For instance, the pic could be read conditionally. This argument is answered similarly to the ‘truism aff’ argument posed at the end of the case neg scarcity section. If this happens in round, there are strong theory arguments to be raised against it. Also, a specific aff compounds aff advantages such as frontlining and framing of the round. To fully flesh out these three sub-debates would be getting into theoretical minutia. Ultimately, I don’t think there is much offense on either side here.
Since the abuse from a specific aff and pic are comparable, the pics argument could actually justify T – Any. It seems like it would be a much better norm to not read the specific aff and create a chance that the round is fair. After all, the neg does not have to read a pic.
The second problem with the pics argument is that it relies on a faulty line of justification. The argument is essentially ‘because the neg could read an abusive argument, the aff should get an advantage.’ The neg could also read multiple condo, skep, etc. Does the aff need an advantage for the chance that those things happen too? The pics argument wanders too far into the territory of potential abuse.
Furthermore, reading an aff that violated T – Any would only increase the incentive to read pics. Because of the lack of neg ground and high chance that the neg won’t be able to prep the aff, the neg has every incentive to read word pics or random process pics. Even if the neg doesn’t read a pic, the ground skew still incentivizes reading a position that moots the aff and mimics the abuse of pics.
Often times when affirmative debaters make the pics argument they don’t go into detail on why pics are bad. So from the strategic perspective there’s a good opportunity for impact turns or to easily nullify the argument with a no warrant. Be careful though, as if you go for the impact turn strategy some of the pics good arguments will likely contradict the arguments in T – Any.
Finally, if it’s true that pics are so abusive then it should be easy for the aff to win theory against them. There doesn’t seem to be much of an impact to allowing the neg to read pics against whole res affs.
A miscellaneous strategic concern when answering this argument is how it interacts with others on the theory flow. The pics response will likely contradict other arguments the aff makes in responding to T – Any such as disclosure solves or any argument that assumes the neg should be able to engage an aff under the aff interp of T – Any. Essentially the aff is making a spec bad argument when they are defending spec good. But as I said when discussing impact turns, be sure to not contradict yourself when answering the pics argument!
b. Disclosure and Solvency Advocates Solve
A classic and reasonable response to any limits argument, this argument usually goes as follows: “The aff counter interpretation requires a solvency advocate and for the aff case to be disclosed, which ensures that the neg has ample ground and can prepare before the round.”
One immediate issue is that debaters try to get away with too much from this argument. The case neg scarcity argument is unaddressed. True, there’s a greater chance that the neg will know what arguments to prep before the round. But those arguments are still limited in quality and quantity, so the disclosure and solvency advocate requirements don’t solve for the neg ground loss inherent to violating T – Any.
The debate about whether or not these requirements solve the limits concern requires closer inspection. One obvious case that these arguments do not solve is new affs. New affs are usually not disclosed, and if they are the disclosure is only minutes before a debate. This leaves the negative with not nearly enough time to prep and is particularly concerning in later elim rounds, where breaking random advocacies can be used as a tool to deliberately prevent the neg from engaging.
Outside of new affs, disclosure and solvency advocates will mitigate but not solve limits concerns. Before a tournament, most debaters don’t meticulously comb the wiki and prep out every aff that they could hit. And it would be wrong to make them – high school students shouldn’t have to dedicate their whole lives to debate. Most prep against specific affs occurs during tournaments. Even if disclosure gives the neg a 30 – 60 minute window to prep before round, there will still be a large prep skew in favor of the aff. The neg will certainly have an easier time debating a disclosed aff with a solvency advocate, but those requirements won’t solve all the limits abuse.
c. The Neg can Shift their Advocacy During General Debate
This argument is much more unique to this topic than the prior two. Because the topic is worded negatively, there’s a legitimate question of what the neg advocacy is against a whole res aff. To clarify, the response is as follows: “Whole res debate requires the aff to get rid of all unconstitutional speech restrictions. But then what is the neg advocacy? Do they have to defend all of those restrictions? Some of them? Can we know if they don’t specify?”
Though I think this response is compelling, there are many ways to mitigate it. Firstly, the neg can just read an advocacy text to guarantee that they won’t shift. Cross examination also provides ample time to ensure that the neg will defend speech codes that the aff is going for in the 1AR. Additionally, if the neg is being shifty then the aff always has access to 1AR theory as recourse.
But in the big picture, this argument is only strong because we don’t have a unified understanding on what whole res debate looks like. If there was community consensus on what the neg advocacy should be, this could easily be avoided. Here’s my attempt at providing a model for what the neg advocacy should be assumed to be in whole res debate:
1. The neg MUST defend any speech restrictions that the aff gets offense from in the AC and 1AR
2. The neg MUST defend any speech restrictions that they get offense from in the NC and NR.
Let’s break this down. Basically, if the aff reads advantages about things like free speech zones or restrictions on campus journalism, then the neg should be assumed to be those restrictions absent an advocacy text. Likewise, if the neg reads a hate speech DA then the neg advocacy includes policies that prohibit hate speech. I think this model is fairly straightforward and aligns with our intuitions about whole res debate.
There are still potential cases of ambiguity. For instance, the neg could read a generic NC and then spend the rest of the time debating framework. I think that CX can help mitigate these concerns and there’s also a growing use of spec theory against strategies like these that make negatives more eager to specify. The model also checks back for this concern by guaranteeing that the neg defends speech codes criticized in the aff contention, which should ensure stable ground.
d. Arguments about the Educational Value of Specific Positions
This argument is another common response to most T arguments, so naturally it applies to T – Any. Aff debaters will respond to T by arguing that: “Case [x] is important to talk about and adds educational value to the activity.” I agree with this argument in spirit. There are a lot of important decisions and policies to talk about, and I’m sure many of the affs that violate T – Any fall among these. The problem with this argument is that it does not justify why allowing these specific advocacies is a good way to go about learning these issues. In essence, this argument talks about the impact of learning about their position but skirts doing the link work explaining how their interpretation achieves that goal.
This response can easily be link turned. If you don’t have the prep to engage their aff, due to limits or poor quality ground, then the in round discussion created is probably not that valuable. The round could teach both debaters more by having them debate on an issue with equitable ground, allowing clash and creating more strategic decisions.
A deeper concern is that these affs incentivize bad engagement. An example of this was the 50 states counterplan seen commonly against plans last year. Instead of creating an actual discussion of the aff, rounds have been bogged down by random implementation issues and cheap shot neg strategies. I find that many neg positions read in response to these affs are about as engaging as moral skepticism. The incentive to read word pics and uplayer I mentioned in response to the pics objection also applies here.
The common response to the education argument that “topical version of the aff solves,” is strong on this topic. In essence, this response explains that we can still learn about their specific aff if it was read as an advantage in a case that did not violate T – Any. You may be able to take this argument a step further. There could be a unique form of education in allowing for comparison between things that the topic literature usually treats as distinct. For instance, a whole res debate could see weighing arguments comparing the value of student protest to the impact of hate speech. This increase critical thinking and innovation by encouraging students to expand upon and synthesize parts of the topic – something we usually don’t see in round.
A variation of the educational objection to T – Any is that sometimes we learn a lot by taking positions that are tough to defend. I don’t think this argument is unique. Especially on the current topic, its likely that debaters will strongly disagree with one of the sides and will consequently have to defend it fairly often.
On another level, there is not much educational value to researching objections to many affs that violate T – Any. Take the free speech zones aff and journalism aff as examples. Most of the arguments in favor of those policies are based on administrative or institutional concerns. Schools don’t want their image tarnished in a paper or to have a public safety hazard during a protest. We don’t learn that much by reading about these arguments, and they also transfer over to debate poorly.
e. It’s no fun to just keep debating the same thing. I’d quit!
Some people argue that the topic could go stale if we adopt an interpretation such as T – Any, which admittedly puts a lot of restrictions on what the aff can defend. The argument goes: “There won’t be a variety of positions to defend or research, so people will get bored of doing the same thing over and over.”
You should be skeptical of this argument from the outset. What people find fun in debate is highly subjective. I enjoyed theory debate but would certainly not want it to be in every round.
This argument is also empirically denied. Take the example of sports – the rules of the game practically never change but people still enjoy playing. Within debates there can still be a ton of variety under whole res constraints. The aff can choose different frameworks and advantages, while the neg can respond with any combination of the arguments I listed earlier and more. There are strategic incentives to innovate, as talked about with new affs, so it’s likely debate wouldn’t get too stale.
Lastly, the staleness argument is not unique. The domestic violence plan was ubiquitous on the jan feb last year and led to some pretty boring rounds.
f. Aff Flexibility
Like the staleness objection, this argument relies on the premise that the aff will have to defend the same thing every round. It is usually explained as: “If the aff is forced to defend only whole res, then it will be crushed by prepped negatives who can read anything. There needs to be flexibility in advocacies available to the aff.”
One issue with this response is that it doesn’t translate well to the topic. There’s a fairly limited amount of negative ground. This makes it equally likely that the aff will be highly prepped for whatever the neg reads and also allows the aff to gear the AC strategically to be ready for those positions.
But this argument again underestimates the variety still possible in whole res debate. The aff can choose any framework, advantage, and underview combination best for each round. New weighing and framing arguments can easily take the neg off their prep. Evidence comparison can be prepped for key arguments in the AC. True; a bad whole res case might almost always lose to the negative. But the same could be said about a bad plan. A prepped aff that knows how to execute their case can easily offset the lack of flexibility. From my own observation, whole res cases seem to do pretty well on the topic.
Lastly, there’s a deeper question about what makes a legitimate flexibility argument. Nibs, multiple condo, multiple pics, 10 theory shells, etc would all add tremendously to neg flexibility and yet these are obviously bad norms. That’s because flexibility is a balancing act, a position can be justified on the basis of flexibility if it doesn’t significantly disadvantage your opponent. The limits and ground arguments from the second section demonstrate why we should reject this form of flexibility.
IV. Conclusion
I hope this article was able to articulate the main points in favor of T – Any. It will be exciting to see how norms develop as the topic progresses. I actually think whole res affirmatives are quite good on this topic – so I would encourage debaters to try them out!
Thanks to Paras Kumar, Bob Overing, Erik Legried, and Noah Simon for providing edits and feedback on the article.
Works Cited
Kadmon, Nirit, and Fred Landman. “Any.” Linguistics and philosophy 16.4 (1993): 353-422.
Carlson, Greg: 1981, ‘Distribution of Free-Choice Any’, in Hendrick, Masek and Miller (eds.), Papers from the Seventeenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, CLS, University of Chicago
Fire.org, “Spotlight on Speech Codes 2017 Executive Summary”, https://www.thefire.org/spotlight-on-speech-codes-2017/#_ftn4
Bibliography
Vlachou, Evangelia. “Definite and Indefinite Free Choice Items: Evidence from English, French and Greek.” 2004 Texas Linguistics Society Conference. Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2006.
Dayal, Veneeta. “The universal force of free choice any.” Linguistic variation yearbook 4.1 (2004): 5-40.
Davison, Alice. “Any as universal or existential.” The Semantics of Determiners, Croom Helm, London (1980): 11-34.
Adam Tomasi, “Plans on the Jan/Feb Lincoln-Douglas Topic,” https://championbriefs.com/blog/plans_on_janfeb-Tomasi
Bob Overing, “Topicality and Plans in LD: A Reply to Nebel”, http://premierdebatetoday.com/2014/12/11/topicality-and-plans-in-ld-a-reply-to-nebel-by-bob-overing/
Jake Nebel, “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics,” http://www.vbriefly.com/2015/02/20/the-priority-of-resolutional-semantics-by-jake-nebel/
Eric Kupferbreg, “Limits – The Essence of Topicality,” 1987, http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Kupferberg1987LatAmer.htm
[1] See Overing, Nebel, and Kupferberg for more background on semantics v pragmatics [2] The literature uses more specific terms here. The existential any is referred to as a negative polarity item, while the universal any is called a free choice item. Authors juxtapose free choice versus negative polarity more often than universal versus existential. (1) is an example of a negative polarity any, and (2) a free choice any. The almost test is still used to identify a free choice any. [3] Of course we are just about midway through the topic so there are potential alternative causes for the limited scope of negative arguments. I think overwhelmingly the limitations come from the literature rather than debaters being lazy or only using certain strategies, but it is hard to be empirical about this question. For reference, I got the neg arguments listed from the wikis of debaters rated top 10 on a variety of LD rankings. Research and other topic work also factored in to my conclusions here