Situation variables and licensing by modification in opaque demonstratives

Postnominal modifiers license unexpected opaque readings of demonstrative descriptions. This paper presents a unified analysis of ordinary demonstrative descriptions and the special construction consisting of an opaque demonstrative description with a postnominal modifier. The analysis is based on two independently necessary components: a modal constraint associated with demonstrative determiners and the modal independence of postnominal modifiers. Far from being a peripheral construction, opaque demonstratives ultimately allow us to probe the interaction of nominal constituents with modality.