Functional Relative Clauses

• Published in: Linguistics and philosophy Vol. 22; no. 5; pp. 447 - 478
• Main Author: Sharvit, Yael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg Kluwer Academic Publishers 01.10.1999; Springer; D. Reidel Publishing Company; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Descriptive studies and applied theories; Functional analysis; Functional reading; Lexical quantifiers; Linguistics; Logic of Language; Mathematical functions; Mothers; Pronouns; Quantifiers; Relative Clauses; Scope; Semantic Analysis; Semantics; Semantics and pragmatics; Uniqueness; Womens songs; Functional analysis; Subordinate clause; Quantizer; Logical Semantics
• ISSN: 0165-0157; 1573-0549
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1005411720444

The syntax & semantics of relative clauses with quantifiers are examined in comparison to those of questions with quantifiers, following certain assumptions made about this type of questions in the analyses of Gennaro Chierchia (1993) & Veneeta Dayal (1996). It is shown that the ambiguity between functional & pair-list interpretations of questions of this type also exists for relative clauses of this type. It is argued that both functional & pair-list readings of relative clauses with quantifiers result from a functional dependency. The prediction that both types of readings show a subject/object asymmetry arising from a weak crossover effect is borne out. An examination of the distribution of functional vs pair-list relative clauses with quantifiers demonstrates that whereas both can "live" in identity sentences (ie, those with a multiple individual reading), only pair-list relative clauses can live in nonidentity sentences. This conclusion is based on an analysis of pair-list relative clauses as a set of relations, which makes them combinable with the sister VP or IP. 1 Appendix, 35 References. C. Brennan