adjective phrase (AP)

a phrase headed by an adjective. In the complement position we can find PPs and finite and non-finite CPs. DPs and exceptional clauses are excluded since adjectives are not Case assigners. APs are complements of DegPs.

adjunction

a type of movement where a new position is formed as a result of the movement creating an adjunction structure, like the (simplified) movement of the PP in the following tree structure representation where the S node is doubled:

clause

a structure containing a (visible or invisible) subject and a predicate.

intransitive verb

a verb without a nominal complement (the object), e.g. ski. Its subject is either an agent or an experiencer, i.e. one of the theta-roles assigned to the specifier of a vP. Occasionally intransitive verbs appear with a cognate object.

node

a symbol defining syntactic units (heads, intermediate constituents, phrases) connected by branches in a tree structure representation.

noun phrase (NP)

a phrase headed by a noun. Noun heads can take PP or CP complements, DP complements are excluded since nouns are not Case assigners. The specifier position of an NP is occupied by what are generally called post-determiners. NPs are complements of DPs.

phrase

a group of words that can undergo syntactic operations (e.g. movement) as a unit.

recursive rule

a rule where the definition refers to what is being defined, e.g. the adjunct rule. The same symbol appears on the left and on the right of the rewrite rule, so the rule can be applied indefinitely. The application of such a rule is optional for this reason.

relative clause

relative clauses are adjoined to NPs, they give information about the nominal expression. See restrictive and non-restrictive relative clause.

specifier position

a position defined by X-bar Theory. The specifier is sister to X', daughter of XP. It is a phrasal position, the nature of the phrase depends on what it is the specifier of. E.g. the specifier of IP is the subject, the specifier of DP is the possessor in possessive structures.

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Basic English Syntax with Exercises

3.1.5.2 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)athe queen, [who was Henry VIII’s daughter]
bthe sun, [which is 93 million miles from the earth]
cmy 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)

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)

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.

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