Adjunct (grammar) - Representing Adjuncts

Representing Adjuncts

Many theories of syntax and grammar employ trees to represent the structure of sentences. Various conventions are used to distinguish between arguments and adjuncts in these trees. In phrase structure grammars, many adjuncts are distinguished from arguments insofar as the adjuncts of a head predicate will appear higher in the structure than the object argument(s) of that predicate. The adjunct is adjoined to a projection of the head predicate above and to the right of the object argument, e.g.

The object argument each time is identified insofar as it is a sister of V that appears to the right of V, and the adjunct status of the adverb early and the PP before class is seen in the higher position to the right of and above the object argument. Other adjuncts, in contrast, are assumed to adjoin to a position that is between the subject argument and the head predicate or above and to the left of the subject argument, e.g.

The subject is identified as an argument insofar as it appears as a sister and to the left of V(P). The modal adverb certainly is shown as an adjunct insofar as it adjoins to an intermediate projection of V or to a projection of S. In X-bar theory, adjuncts are represented as elements that are sisters to X' levels and daughters of X' level ].

Theories that assume sentence structure to be less layered than the analyses just given sometimes employ a special convention to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. Some dependency grammars, for instance, use an arrow dependency edge to mark adjuncts, e.g.

The arrow dependency edge points away from the adjunct toward the governor of the adjunct. The arrows identify six adjuncts: Yesterday, probably, many times, very, very long, and that you like. The standard, non-arrow dependency edges identify Bill, Susan, that very long story that you like, etc. as arguments (of one of the predicates in the sentence).