On Tense Interpretations in Intensional Double Access Sentences

Abstract

It is argued that double access sentences are interpreted de re with respect to a state described by the embedded clause. The de re interpretation is manifested by postulating a tense movement. However, this de re analysis has some serious problems, as pointed out by Gennari (1999, 2003). As an alternative approach, Gennari (1999, 2003) and Altshuler & Schwarzchild (2013) propose that a double access reading is due to the semantics of the present tense without postulating any particular mechanism that applies to embedded tenses. In this squib, I argue that their uniform approach to embedded and non-embedded tenses also faces its own shortcomings, which can shed some new light on the interpretation of embedded tenses.