Pro Properties, Contra Generalized Kinds

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Noun Incorporation from a Semantic Point of View

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Place of Morphology in a Grammar (1992), pp. 453-46

A Before-&-After Picture of When-, Before-, and After-Clauses

No abstract

A modal ambiguity in for-infinitival relative clauses

This squib presents two puzzles related to an ambiguity found in for-infinitival relative clauses (FIRs). FIRs invariably receive a modal interpretation even in the absence of any overt modal verb. The modal interpretation seems to come in two distinct types, which can be paraphrased by finite relative clauses employing the modal auxiliaries should and could. The two puzzles presented here arise because the availability of the two readings is constrained by factors that are not otherwise known to affect the interpretation of a relative clause. Specifically, we show, first, that “strong” determiners require the FIR to be interpreted as a SHOULD-relative while “weak” determiners allow both interpretations (the Determiner-Modal Generalization). Secondly, we observe that the COULD-interpretation requires a raising (internally headed) structure for the FIR, while the SHOULD-interpretation is compatible with either a raising or a more standard matching (externally headed) structure (the Raising/Matching Generalization)

On the property analysis of opaque complements

In this paper, we regard Zimmermann’s/n(1993) property analysis of verbs of absence as a/nspecial case of the/nindependent ability of verbs to take property-type complements (see Ladusaw, 1994)./nBy integrating into this analysis a Quinian decomposition/nof verbs of absence we can tease apart the/ndistinction between opaque and/ntransparent, nonspecific complements, as well as the distinction between/nde dicto and de re readings of/nnonspecific complements. This prevents us from overgeneralizing/ntransparent readings of inherently opaque complements and/ninherently opaque verbs and it helps us to/nanswer some criticisms that Moltmann (1997) raises against Zimmermann’s proposal