**Summary:** The paper presents a novel semantic account for the so-called “intersective/non-intersective” ambiguity of structures such as *beautiful dancer*. The proposal contrasts with Larson’s (1998) famous event-based analysis in unmasking the bracketing paradox perception of the non-intersective reading as a grammatical illusion. The adjective has no compositional access to the verbal root’s event-argument but is always linked to the referential argument of the noun. -*er* nominals are analyzed as a special kind of role nouns (such as *king*, *guest*, *judge*). They introduce a social role r that manifests itself via the verbal root’s e-argument. (However, neither r nor e are compositionally active anymore.) An evaluative adjective such as *beautiful* introduces an underspecified trope variable, which calls for a pragmatic specification of the adjectival predicate’s ultimate target. A general pragmatic parsimonity condition ensures that referents introduced by linguistic material are chosen as best target candidates whenever possible. The -*er* nominal’s social role r is an ideal choice in this respect. Linking the adjective to the verbal root’s e-argument is mediated via r and thus a secondary – pragmatic – effect. The proposal provides a unified analysis for modified -*er* nominals such as *beautiful dancer* and other instances of role- resp. event-related interpretations for adnominal modification as in *just king*.
