Relativsätze und Intensionalität

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas E. Zimmermann
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2011 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 202630811

The project INT aims at a clarification of the relationship between different functional types of relative clauses. Extensive and detailed investigations of the interaction of relative clauses with various intensional operations carried out during the first period of funding have led the project to a focus on the following areas of phenomena, which have proved to be particularly instructive: Modalized relative clauses in unspecific indefinites (as in The company is looking for an engineer who ought to be fluent in English) display systematic connections between restrictive and appositive readings. With amount relatives, as particularly prominent in English (We will never be able to drink the champagne they spilt last night) a connection can be made with comparative constructions (Never will the amount of champagne we are able to drink be the amount of champagne they spilt last night). In some environments e.g., concealed exlamatives (Its amazing the people you meet at these conferences) relative clauses, which are normally optional, turn out to be essential for the grammaticality of a construction (Licensing by modification).The above-mentioned constructions form the core area covered by the semantic analyses to be developed within the project. The theoretical framework will be provided by type-driven interpretation, which has been particularly fruitful for modal and nominal semantics.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1783: Relative Clauses
• Participating Person: Dr. Cécile Meier