Heycock, Caroline (2003) On the interaction of adjectival modifiers and relative clauses.
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This paper addresses data concerning the interpretation of adjectives such as first, last and only when they modify the head of a relative clause, and argues, contra Bhatt 2002, that the ambiguities that such constructions exhibit do not follow from the interpretation of low copies of the head NP+modifier within the relative. Instead it is argued that the "low" readings of the modfiers follow from the possibility of interpreting an entailed negation with low scope, a phenomenon well-known in the literature under the rubric of "Neg-Raising." The quite limited distribution of the "low" readings is described in some detail for the first time, contrasted with other "reconstruction effets", and explained by the analysis proposed.
Keywords: relative clauses, Neg-Raising, reconstruction, negative polarity