Adjuncts

It is now time to turn to the third rule in (1), which we repeat here:

(30) Xⁿ→ Xⁿ, Y/YP

This is different from the previous two rules in a number of ways. First, the previous rules specified the possible constituents of the various specific projections of the head:

complements are immediate constituents of X' and specifiers are immediate constituents of XP. The adjunction rule in (30) is more general as it states the possible constituents of an Xⁿ, that is, an X with any number of bars. In other words, Xⁿ stands for XP (=X''), X' or X (=X⁰). The adjunct itself is defined either as a word (Y) or as a phrase (YP) and we will see that which of these is relevant depends on the status of Xⁿ: if Xⁿ is a word, then the adjunct is a word, if not then the adjunct is a phrase.

Note that the two elements on the right of the rewrite arrow are separated by a comma. This is missing from the complement and specifier rule. The significance of the comma is to indicate that the order between the adjunct and the Xⁿ is not determined by the rule. We have seen that in English the complement follows the head and the specifier precedes it. Adjuncts, on the other hand, it will be seen, may precede or follow the head depending on other conditions, which we will detail when looking at specific instances of adjunction.

The final thing to note is that the adjunction rule is recursive: the same symbol appears on the left and the right of the rewrite arrow. Thus the rule tells us that an element of type Xⁿ can be made up of two elements, one of which is an adjunct and the other is another Xⁿ. Of course, this Xⁿ may also contain another Xⁿ, and so on indefinitely. In this way, any number of adjuncts may be added to a structure.

1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

Let us take an example to demonstrate how this might work. We know that an adjectival phrase can be used to modify a noun, as in:

(31) a smart student b vicious dog c serious mistake

It is clear that the noun is the head of this construction as it can act as the complement of a determiner and determiners take nominal complements, not adjectival ones:

(32) a the [NP serious error]

b the [NP error]

c *the [AP serious]

The bracketed elements in (32a) and (b) have the same distribution and hence we can conclude they have the same categorial status. As this phrase in (32b) contains only a

noun, we conclude that it is an NP. In (32c) however, the phrase following the determiner contains only an adjective and is ungrammatical. This clearly has a different distribution to the other two phrases, indicating that the adjective in (32a) is not the head of this phrase.

It is also possible to conclude that the adjective is not a complement of the head noun as it does not follow the noun and as we have seen, in English, all complements follow their heads.

The other possibility is that the adjective functions as a specifier within the NP and as specifiers precede their heads, this seems more likely. Yet there are properties of the adjective that make it an unlikely specifier. As we saw, specifiers of thematic heads tend to be arguments of those heads. The adjective is obviously not an argument of the noun as it does not bear a thematic role assigned by the noun. Furthermore, specifiers are limited to a single occurrence and there cannot be more than one of them:

(33) a the letter arrived b the postman arrived

c *the letter the postman arrived

However, there can be more than one adjectival modifier of a noun:

(34) a popular smart student b big evil vicious dog

c solitary disastrous unforgivable serious mistake

Thus, the adjectival modifier is an adjunct of the noun. We will argue in a later chapter that adjectival modifiers follow the specifier of the NP and hence adjectival phrases are attached in a position between the specifier and the head. As we see in the following, this puts them as adjuncts to the N':

(35) NP

spec N'

AP N'

smart N

student

The part of the structure containing the AP is recursive with an N' as the mother and an N' as one of the daughters. This means that there is room for more APs, as demonstrated by (36):

(36) NP spec N'

AP N'

popular AP N'

smart N

student

This could go on indefinitely with each adjunct introducing an N' which itself contains an adjunct and another N' and hence any number of adjuncts could be added to the structure, which appears to be the correct treatment of adjuncts.

1.5.2 Adjunction to phrase

We can exemplify adjunction to a phrase with a certain type of relative clause.

Relative clauses are clauses which are used to modify nouns:

(37) a the queen, [who was Henry VIII’s daughter]

b the sun, [which is 93 million miles from the earth]

c my mother, [who was a successful racing driver]

These clauses are not complements of the nouns, the nouns in (37) all being intransitive, and cannot be specifiers as they follow the head. Like AP adjuncts, they are recursive, demonstrating a clear property of an adjunct:

(38) book, [which I was telling you about], [which I haven’t read]

We will see in a later chapter that there is reason to believe that these types of relative clause are adjoined to the NP rather than the N':

(39) NP

NP RelS

N' which I told you about

N book

In this case it is the NP that is recursive, the top NP node contains the relative clause and another NP. This means that there is room for further relative clauses:

(40) NP

NP RelS

NP RelS which I didn’t read

N' which I told you about

N book

Again, we could keep adding NPs and relative clauses indefinitely, each relative clause adjoined to a successively higher NP. Incidentally, note that here we see that adjuncts may appear on different sides of the element that they modify. While an AP adjunct precedes the N', the relative clause follows the P.

1.5.3 Adjunction to head

Finally, we will consider the case of adjunction to a head, using compound nouns for an example. There are a number of complexities which we will not go into here, sticking to more straightforward cases. Compound nouns are formed by putting two otherwise independent elements, usually an adjective and a noun or two nouns, together and use the resulting unit as a single noun:

(41) a armchair b breastplate c luncheon meat d blackbird e tallboy

Sometimes the spelling indicates that the two parts of the noun are put together to form one word, but other times it does not. We will not delve into the mysteries of English spelling here. Note that when compounds are formed from an adjective and a noun, the noun is second. Moreover, if there is a main semantic element of the two parts of the compound, this is also the second element: an armchair is a kind of chair not a kind of arm. We might claim therefore that the second element is the head and the first is a modifier of the head. The structures we get are:

(42) N N

N N A N

arm chair tall boy

Given that the second noun is the head, it follows that the first element is an adjunct to the head. In principle, we should be able to get multiple head adjuncts by the same recursive process as we have noted with other adjuncts. However in practice it is not so common to find multiple compound nouns of this type. It is more common

to find the adjunct itself being made up of a compound, which has a very different structure. Compare the following:

(43) a computer hard disk b ballpoint pen

In both cases the last noun is the head, but the adjuncts are related in different ways. In (43a), the adjective hard modifies the head to form a compound hard disk. We then add the second adjunct which modifies this. Thus we have the structure:

(44) N

N N

computer A N

hard disk

In (43b) on the other hand, we have a compound made up of ball and point, with the latter as the head. This compound is then used as an adjunct in the compound ballpoint pen, giving the following structure:

(45) N

N N

N N pen

ball point

An interesting point to note is that the adjunct to a head is always a head itself, which differs from the previous cases of adjunction we looked at above. Adjuncts adjoined to X' or XP are always phrases. It has been suggested that this is due to a restriction on adjunction such that only like elements can adjoin: heads to heads, phrases to phrases. If this is true, then X' adjunction should not be possible as the adjunct differs in its X-bar status to the X', being a phrase. We will not accept this point of view however and assume that while only heads can adjoin to heads, phrases can adjoin to any constituent larger than a head.

In document Basic English Syntax with Exercises (Pldal 108-112)