Attaching NRCs to Plural Quantificational Heads

Abstract

This paper presents the results of two experiments in German investigating the acceptability and interpretation of non-restrictive relative clauses (NRCs) with (plural) quantificational heads. Contrary to standard assumptions, NRCs with strong quantificational head are grammatical in sentence-internal subject position and even can get a reading in this position according to which the relative pronoun is referring to the intersection of restrictor and scope of the quantification. This observation does not only give interesting insights into the nature of NRCs, but might have far reaching consequences for existing dynamic approaches to plural anaphora in discourse.12