Decomposing (non-)restrictivity Evaluative modifiers in post-head positions

This paper is devoted to a particular aspect of the interpretation of evaluative adjectives (marvelous, horrible), that is, adjectives that are compatible with subjective attitude verbs like find in the construction find x adj (e.g. find marvelous) and give rise to the so-called ‘faultless disagreement’ pattern. 1 Evaluative adjectives have often been claimed to manifest a strong, and even exclusive, preference for the nonrestrictive reading (henceforth the ‘nonrestrictive bias hypothesis’). For French for instance, Milner (1978) :301 claims that adjectives that he calls ‘affectifs’ (abominable ‘awful’, horrible ‘horrible’) cannot be used ‘in a restrictive or anaphorical way’ (my translation). For Spanish, Demonte (2008) : 71 argues that what she calls ‘extreme degree adjectives’ (horrible ‘horrible’, necio ‘stupid’, espantoso ‘awful’) and ‘qualitative superlative adjectives’ (maravilloso ‘wonderful’, magnífico ‘magnificent’) ‘are predicative nonrestrictive modifiers’. For Catalan, Castroviejo-Miró and Schwager (2008) :184 assume that adjectives like beautiful ‘are often understood as non-restrictive’. For German, Umbach (2012b) claims that ‘evaluative predicates [...] often cannot be used restrictively’. The claim has also been extended to adverbials derived from these adjectives. For instance, Castroviejo-Miró (2008) :63 argue that her extremely adverbials ‘are non-restrictive modifiers’. For those languages that allow both the postand pre-head positions for at least a subset of their adjectives, 2 a frequent observation reported in support of the ‘nonrestrictive bias