An examination of some surface differences between quantifier phrases (QP) in standard Italian, Genoese dialect, and French is reported. The analysis makes specific reference to the distribution of empty noun phrase and adjectival phrase categories in SpecN, and uses the concept of inflectional rules. Although details have not yet been worked out, the discussion strongly favors the position that the category QP is really only a label of convenience because the syntactic behavior examined here could be given an adequate analysis with an approach that views QP as an autonomous lexical category. (MSE)