Restricting the fourth reading

Abstract

Szabó (2010, 2011) argues that DPs in intensional contexts have specific-opaque readings, in which their determiner scopes above some intensional operator while their restrictor is nevertheless interpreted in the scope of the operator. This poses a potential problem to prominent theories of intensionality (e.g. Percus 2000, Keshet 2008) in which wide quantificational scope (specificity) implies transparency. We attempt to restrict the scope of the problem by demonstrating that an important sub-class of Szabó's examples is syntactically restricted to relativization environments, and can be generated by invoking independently motivated mechanisms for NP reconstruction into relative clauses without calling into question commonly made assumptions about intensional constructions.

Preliminaries for a substitution theory of <i>de re</i>

“…InBenbaji (2021) we suggest that at least some instances of specific-opaque readings should be derived via the same mechanism that derives revisionist attitudes.…”