Caught by the 2026-05-03 dry-run distribution review across the
73-question bench set (§10.11.3 step 2):
intensity pre-fix post-fix
SINGULAR 61 (84%) 65 (89%)
MANY 4 ( 5%) 0 ( 0%) ← all 4 were `how many X?`
ALL 1 ( 1%) 1 ( 1%)
COMPREHENSIVE 1 ( 1%) 1 ( 1%)
OPEN_REQUEST 5 ( 7%) 5 ( 7%)
SMALL_NUM 1 ( 1%) 1 ( 1%)
Defect: `how many states are there?` matched the bare `\bmany\b`
pattern in MANY rung — wrong. `how many X?` is a count-question
SHAPE, asking for ONE numeric answer ("50"), not enumeration of
many things. Cap should be 1 (SINGULAR), not 8 (Hermes MANY).
Fix: count-question short-circuit in classify_question_quantifier()
that returns SINGULAR for `^\s*(?:and\s+|but\s+|so\s+)?how (?:many|much)\b`.
Anchored at start so buried `how many` (e.g. "list all the states;
how many are there?") doesn't suppress the rest of the question's
quantifier markers — the leading `list all` still wins.
9 new tests pin: count questions classify SINGULAR, leading
conjunctions don't break the short-circuit, buried `how many` does
NOT short-circuit (verifies anchor is leading-only).
Bonus — Finding 2 from the dry-run review: zero bounded universals
in bench fixture. Adds two:
name all members of the beatles
list all planets in the solar system
Both classify ALL · scope_bound_hint=bounded so the §10.1 bounded-
vs-unbounded distinction has live bench coverage. Without these,
--reject-broad correctness on bounded universals has no automated
test fixture.
915 tests passing (9 new); 36 skipped.
Lands aborist/qa/quantifier.py with classify_question_quantifier(),
a pure function mapping a question string onto the ten-rung
intensity ladder (ticket #000008 §2):
ABSENT < SINGULAR < PROPORTIONAL < SMALL_NUM_EXPLICIT
< COMPARATIVE_BOUND < FEW < MANY < ABSENT < ALL
< OPEN_REQUEST < COMPREHENSIVE
Returns intensity, matched_token, explicit_count, is_broad,
operational_shape, scope_bound_hint, classifier_version. Pure: no
I/O, no model call, no retrieval call.
Highest-intensity-wins arbitration: COMPREHENSIVE strictly stronger
than OPEN_REQUEST (both > ALL). Catches "tell me everything about
all wars" → COMPREHENSIVE rather than dropping to one of the softer
shape detectors.
Scope_bound_hint heuristic (§10.1): bounded vs unbounded universals.
"All members of the Beatles" → bounded (corpus-known finite set).
"Winners of all major sports" → unbounded (scope undefined). Year-
anchored questions ("…in 2024") bound the universe to one event.
Heuristic only — corpus-arity check left for future refinement.
Wired into query() right after policy resolution. Both miss and
cache-hit paths surface quantifier_intensity, quantifier_matched
_token, scope_bound_hint, quantifier_explicit_count on the result
dict. claim_cap_applied is None until Phase 2 lands the cap-
application gate (default-off per §10.11.3 dry-run discipline).
61 new tests cover every rung, scope-bound detection (bounded /
unbounded / unknown), highest-wins arbitration, and regression
fixtures (factoid/wh-questions don't over-classify as broad).
