Argument (linguistics) - Arguments and Adjuncts

Arguments and Adjuncts

The basic analysis of the syntax and semantics of clauses relies heavily on the distinction between arguments and adjuncts. The clause predicate, which is often a content verb, demands certain arguments. That is, the arguments are necessary in order to complete the meaning of the verb. The adjuncts that appear, in contrast, are not necessary in this sense. The subject phrase and object phrase are the two most frequently occurring arguments of verbal predicates. For instance:

Jill likes Jack.

Sam fried the meat.

The old man helped the young man.

Each of these sentences contains two arguments (in bold), the first noun (phrase) being the subject argument, and the second the object argument. Jill, for example, is the subject argument of the predicate likes, and Jack is its object argument. Verbal predicates that demand just a subject argument (e.g. sleep, work, relax) are intransitive, verbal predicates that demand an object argument as well (e.g. like, fry, help) are transitive, and verbal predicates that demand two object arguments are ditransitive (e.g. give, loan, send) .

When additional information is added to our three example sentences, one is dealing with adjuncts, e.g.

Jill really likes Jack.

Jill likes Jack most of the time.

Jill likes Jack when the sun shines.

Jill likes Jack because he's friendly.

The added phrases (in bold) are adjuncts; they provide additional information that is not centrally necessary to complete the meaning of the predicate likes. One key difference between arguments and adjuncts is that the appearance of a given argument is often obligatory, whereas adjuncts appear optionally. While typical verb arguments are subject or object nouns or noun phrases as in the examples above, they can also be prepositional phrases (PPs) (or even other categories). The PPs in bold in the following sentences are arguments:

Sam put the pen on the chair.

Larry does not put up with that.

Bill is getting on my case.

We know that these PPs are (or contain) arguments because when we attempt to omit them, the result is unacceptable:

*Sam put the pen.

*Larry does not put up.

*Bill is getting.

Subject and object arguments are known as core arguments; core arguments can be suppressed, added, or exchanged in different ways, using voice operations like passivization, antipassivization, application, incorporation, etc. Prepositional arguments, which are also called oblique arguments, however, do not tend to undergo the same processes.