The Syntax of Nominal Modification and its Interaction with Nominal Structure
PI: Artemis Alexiadou
Researchers: Cinzia Campanini, Susanne Lohrmann and Mihaela Marchis
Hiwi: Marcel Pitteroff
Former researcher: Kirsten Gengel
The project investigates ambiguity in the area of nominal modification. The main hypothesis is that ambiguity arises as a result of different structural combinations. The project investigates in detail three distinct contextual factors that are being identified as the source of ambiguity: (a) the syntactic structure of the modifier and (b) the internal structure of the head noun and (c) their interaction. This enables a better understanding of the restrictions on ambiguity and a plausible basis for compositional semantics.