Intensional Noun Phrases with know and be

Abstract

Following Romero (2003), this paper develops a unified analysis of two types of N(oun) P(hrase)s: concealed question NPs with know and NP subjects of specificational sentences with be. It is argued that both epistemic know and specificational be are intensional verbs requiring an inten- sional semantic argument. It is further argued that this semantic argument is, in both cases, propo- sitional in nature. Crosslinguistic data on pronominalization, coordination and matching effects in free relatives are provided in support of these conclusions.

Keywords

• concealed question
• specificational copular sentence
• intensionality
• connectivity
• pronominalization
• gender