Suggested answer for Exercise 2

Both tree structures are correct. The sentence can be regarded as an ambiguous sentence with two different meanings and two different structures. However, it is hard to capture the difference in meaning. The sentence with the DP in (2) means that ‘I know those students of Mathematics from London who are new’. The other sentence with the DP in (3) means that ‘I know those new students of Mathematics who are from London’. The structure can be tested by a substitution test. The N' node can be substituted for by one/ones.

(4)		I know the new students of Mathematics from London and Peter knows the old ones.
(5)		I know the new students of Mathematics from London and Peter knows the ones from Paris.

In sentence (4) one stands for students of Mathematics from London. Thus this string of words has to form one node in the structure. We can find an N' node in structure (2) which exhaustively dominates this string of words while we find no such node in structure ii. This means that the structure in (2) has to be correct.

In sentence (5) one stands for new students of Mathematics. Thus this string of words has to form one node in the structure as well. Now we can find an N' node in structure (3) which exhaustively dominates this string of words, but we do not find such a node in structure (2). Consequently both structures are correct.