DP-Internal Only, Amount Relatives, and Relatives out of Existentials

1 Similarities between Amount Relatives and Relatives out of Existentials

Relative clauses whose gap corresponds to the postverbal nominal in a there-existential have been claimed to have only amount readings and to lack ordinary restrictive relative readings (Carlson 1977, Heim 1987, Grosu and Landman 1998). This claim has been based on the observation that relatives out of existentials share two important structural properties with clear cases of amount relatives: a restriction to definite/universal determiners on the head noun, and a requirement for a that or null relative pronoun in some dialects of English. In this squib, I argue that facts involving DP-internal only cast serious doubt on the viability of explaining these similarities via an obligatory amount relative analysis for relatives out of existentials.

Intuitively, amount relatives denote properties of amounts or degrees, and as a result the DPs containing them are interpreted as denoting amounts or degrees. This is clearly seen in examples like those in (1).

(1)

1. a. Marv put everything he could in his pocket.

   (Carlson 1977:528)

2. b. It would take days to drink the champagne they spilled that evening.

   (adapted from Heim 1987:38)

3. c. The money it costs makes no difference.

The amount reading of (1a) would be true in a situation in which Marv had ten objects, each of which individually would fit in his pocket, four of which together fill his pocket, and he chooses to put those four in his pocket. Paraphrasing, for the maximal amount a such that Marv could put that amount a in his pocket, he put a in his pocket. The nonamount reading would be true in the same context if, for each of the ten objects, Marv put that object in his pocket at some point. In the case of (1b), the amount reading is the only pragmatically plausible one: it requires only drinking the same amount of champagne as was spilled on the evening in question, not that we drink the very same liquid.

As mentioned, amount relatives have two well-established identifying syntactic properties. First, as Carlson observes, they license only a definite/universal determiner on the head noun. For example, the sentences in (2) lack amount readings.

(2)

1. a. Max put many things that he could in his pocket.

2. b. It would take days to drink some champagne they spilled that evening.

3. c. ??Some money it costs makes no difference.

Second, in some dialects of English (compare the judgments in Carlson 1977 with those in Safir 1982; see Heim 1987 for discussion), amount relatives strongly prefer or require a that/null relative pronoun and are incompatible with which and who. The examples in (3) allow an amount reading only with difficulty, if at all, while (4) shows that expressions that arguably denote only amounts, such as the complement to measure verbs like cost, resist which-relatives.

(3)

1. a. %Max put everything which he could in his pocket.

2. b. It will take years to drink the champagne which they spilled that evening.

(4) ??The money which it costs makes no difference.

Carlson observes that relatives out of the postverbal position in existential sentences share both of these properties.¹

(5)

1. a. You've eaten every cookie there was in the house.

2. b. They're overwhelmed by (all) the visitors there are.

3. c. ??You've eaten some/two/many cookies there are in the house.

(6)

1. a. ??You've eaten every cookie which there is in the house.

2. b. ??They're overwhelmed with all the visitors who/which there are.

Though these facts suggest that existentials only permit amount relatives out of the postverbal position, closer scrutiny reveals two important differences between amount relatives and relatives out of exis-tentials that call into question an amount relative analysis as the explanation for the facts in (5) and (6).

2 Differences between Amount Relatives and Relatives out of Existentials

The first difference between amount relatives and relatives out of existentials is that the latter carry an identity-of-individuals requirement that is not generally carried by amount relatives (McNally 1992, Grosu and Landman 1998) and...