Current versions of Chomskyan syntax take for granted that maximal or "extended" projections of the fundamental lexical categories N, A, V and P contain elaborate systems of functional heads and projections, which also differ in nature for each of these systems. This paper begins an argument, to be continued elsewhere, that this approach is currently more than "taken to extremes"; rather it is fundamentally misguided. All functional modifiers truly independent of a lexical category are types of quantifying or counting. Several unexplained properties then fall into place, among other those of subject phrases and measure phrases, and many differences between English and Japanese, both in counting and regarding subject NPs
