How small are small clauses? Embedded Adjectives and Restructuring

Recent contributions to the debate on the structural architecture of small clauses (SCs) have provided new insights into (what will be called here) Williams’s (1983) puzzle – a dilemma arising when SCs are compared to embedded infinitives. Williams (1983) attributed the lack of narrow scope readings with SCs to the inexistence of a subject position inside the small clause. More recently, Sportiche (2005), as well as Moulton (2013) have challenged this conclusion. Under the assumption that the quantificational force of noun phrases is dependent on heads situated in the extended projection of the clause (Beghelli and Stowell 1997, etc.), the two accounts solve the puzzle by assuming that adjectival (Adj) SCs are too small to contain the heads relevant for nominal quantification licensing, while still housing a subject position (clausal analysis - CA). This paper addresses further data which appear to require refinements of the quantification picture. The preliminary conclusion is that once the CA is enriched with a restructuring account (developing on Stowell 1991) as well as domain-based locality conditions (similar to Bobaljik and Wurmbrand’s 2005 Domain Impenetrability Condition) yet more aspects related to the nature of embedded adjective configurations become less puzzling.