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ALL versus EVERYTHING
These words are horribly complex, so don’t worry if they confuse you, and often grammar books try to put them into grammatical categories that don’t really fit. So I’ll try here to explain how we use them.
Everything is usually classed as a pronoun – to be more precise a quantifying pronoun.
That means it can fit into either subject or object position :
Everything is OK. / I didn’t finish everything
It’s a pronoun because it’s substituting for other understood items :
I had to clean the kitchen, make the beds, clean the floors and do the washing. But I only had half an hour and I didn’t finish everything.
Everything substitutes for clean the kitchen, make the beds, hoover the carpets and do the washing
All on the other hand is a quantifier which can have various grammatical functions :
– Adverb : used to modify a preposition (all over, all round, all through etc) or adjective (all dirty, all right) etc : He painted all through the night / He got all dirty.
– Determiner : All the people cheered./ I don’t like all his books
– Pronoun : He couldn’t provide her with all she needed
Even in the last example though, it makes more sense to me to think of all as really being a determiner with the noun phrase elided (or omitted) – ie :He couldn’t provide her with all (the things) she needed.
See also: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/everyone-everybody-everything-everywhere
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