Equational-intensional relative clauses with syntactic representation

Analyses of scope reconstruction typically fall into two competing approaches: ‘semanticreconstruction’, which derives non-surface scope using semantic mechanisms, and ‘syntacticreconstruction’, which derives it by positing additional syntactic representations at thelevel of Logical Form. Grosu and Krifka (2007) proposed a semantic-reconstruction analysisfor relative clauses like the gifted mathematician that Dan claims he is, in which the relativehead NP can be interpreted in the scope of a lower intensional quantifier. Their analysis relieson type-shifting the relative head into a predicate of functions. We develop an alternativeanalysis for such relative clauses that replaces type-shifting with syntactic reconstruction. Thecompeting analyses diverge in their predictions regarding scope possibilities in head-externalrelative clauses. We use Hebrew resumptive pronouns, which disambiguate a relative clausein favor of the head-external structure, to show that the prediction of syntactic reconstructionis correct. This result suggests that certain type-shifting operations are not made available byUniversal Grammar.Keywords: relative clauses, scope, reconstruction, type-shifting, de dicto, intensional quantifiers,binding, resumptive pronouns.