Alexander Grosu & Manfred Krifka. “The accomplished mathematician he claims to be: The semantics of Modal Compatibility Relatives”, handout of a talk given at Sinn und Bedeutung IX, Nijmegen, November 1-3, 2004.
A Sketch of Grosu & Krifka’s Analysis
Example of a Modal Compatibility Relative:
(1) The accomplished mathematician Bill claims to be should be able to solve this simple problem without difficulties.
The worlds of the modal operator of the relative clause are the ones with respect to which the main clause are evaluated.
Paraphrase: The worlds that are compatible with what Bill claims to be (in which Bill is an acclaimed mathematician), are worlds in which Bill is able to solve this simple problem.
This precludes that the main clause is interpreted w.r.t. the actual world (external modality reqirement). And it requires that the worlds at which the main clause is evaluated are included in those at which the relative clause is evaluated (compatibility between the modalities).
Task: Arrive at this in a compositional way!
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This entry was posted by fintel on Friday, November 12th, 2004, at 10:24 pm.
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