Consider the sentence in (la), where the adjectival passive unknown is a modifier within an existential NP. (la) is ambiguous between a local reading (lb) and a propositional reading (lc).(1) a. Solange is staying in an unknown hotel.b. Solange is staying in a hotel. It is not a well-known one. c. Solange is staying in a hotel, and it is not known which hotel she is staying in. We are interested in the propositional reading of the participle (p-participle). In the paraphrases in (1-4), what corresponds to the p-participle operates on a constituent question or a that-clause.(2) The suspects are in custody at two undisclosed locations.'The suspects are in custody at two locations and it is not disclosed which locations they are in custody in'.
(3)The suspects were arrested at unspecified locations. 'The suspects were arrested at some locations and it was unspecified which locations they were arrested in'.Fabienne put the money in an uneJUlected place. 'Fabienne put the money at some place, and it was not expected that she would put the money in that place. The readings under discussion are possible with singular indefinite descriptions (1 and 4), cardinal determiners (2), and bare plurals (3). In addition, with certain participles a similar reading is observed for definite descriptions: (5) Fabienne put the money in the predicted place. However, in examples involving other quantificational determiners, the propositional reading is absent. Sentence (7) cannot mean that the campus police installed burglar alarms in most buildings and that it is unknown which buildings the campus police installed burglar alarms in. (6) Solange has stayed in every unspecified hotel.(7) The campus police installed burglar alarms in most unknown buildings. This is suggestive of the distinction made in DRT theories between indefinite and definite descriptions on the one hand, and so called genuine quantifiers on the other.
The Straightforward ApproachIn existing analyses of modification within NP, an adjective in the configuration [Det _ N ] operates either just on a variable (as in the case of an extensional adjective) or on the intension of N (as in the case of the intensional adjectives fake andformer). Thus if the clausal paraphrases in (1-4) are a guide to compositional structure, a novel compositional mechanism appears to be motivated. Let us © 1997 by Dorit Abusch and Mats Rooth Aaron Lawson (ed), SALT VII, 1-18, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.