Infinitival Complements

Abstract

Kusumoto (2005) argues against a scope analysis of tense in a Priorian system and for one where explicit tense variables appear in the object language of semantic analysis. She bases her argument partly on sentences where a verb in a relative clause is interpreted at a later time than the matrix verb, even though the relative clause occurs in a Determiner Phrase trapped below tense by an Negative Polarity Item. However, Kusumoto admits that her system alone does not explain the generalization noticed by Abusch (1988) that later-than-matrix readings for transitive intensional verbs correlate with de re readings of their objects. This paper argues for a version of the scope analysis of tense that accounts for both the Abusch and the Kusumoto facts, as well some new evidence that does not easily fit into an explicit tense variable system.