adjunct

a constituent not selected by a head.

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:

adverb

a constituent with the feature composition [+N, +V, –F] used to modify a verb (as in everything went smoothly) or a sentence (as in Unfortunately, I did not pass the first exam). In this approach adverbs and adjectives belong to the same category, the difference between them being what they modify.

clause

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

inflection

(a) a morpheme added to the end of words of a given category in sentence structure as required by the given structure, e.g. s in Peter like s his dog or er in Peter is clever er than Tony.

(b) the head of an Inflectional Phrase. It can be realised as a modal auxiliary or a zero agreement morpheme. Information about tense can be found in a separate vP directly under IP.

inflectional phrase (IP)

in traditional grammars the IP is a phrase headed by an inflectional element which can be a modal auxiliary (e.g. may, should, will), infinitival to or the bound morphemes expressing tense ( ed, s) the latter undergoing Affix Lowering to form a unit with the verb. In the present approach, however, it has been argued that the head position of the IP contains only the modal auxiliaries and the (in English) invisible agreement morpheme, information about Tense can be found in an independent vP hosting infinitival to, and the bound morphemes -ed and -s also appear here. The specifier position of an IP is occupied by the subject (see canonical subject position), the complement of an I is usually a VP or vP (but see small clauses for an exception). IPs are complements of CPs or ECM verbs.

sentential adverb

an adverb which modifies the meaning of the sentence, e.g. fortunately.

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.

tense

a syntactic category with the help of which we can locate an event or situation in time. In syntactic representation information about tense can be found within the vP appearing directly under the IP in the form of -s, -ed or the zero tense morpheme.

VP adverb

an adverb which modifies the meaning of the verb, e.g. always, already, never.

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Basic English Syntax with Exercises

6.4 Adjunction within IP

In the last section of this chapter we will briefly consider adjunction within the clause. We have seen in the last chapter that adverbs come in at least two types: sentential adverbs and VP adverbs. The two can be distinguished by what they modify and also in terms of where they attach to a structure.

Sentential modifiers are normally considered to have the whole sentence as their domain of modification, i.e. they add an extra meaning to the sentence as a whole:

(68)ashe will certainly be offended
bit will probably never happen
cI had luckily saved the envelope

Note that the most natural position for these adverbs is after the modal but before the rest of the sentence, suggesting that it adjoins to the phrase headed by tense:

(69)

We do however find them following the subject but before the inflection:

(70)ahe naturally could cook
bthey hopefully might know the way
cI regrettably have forgotten your name

The only place that an adverb would be able to attach to, to come between a head and its specifier, is the X'. So unless we assume either that subjects are not necessarily in the specifier of the inflection or that the modals are not necessarily in the inflection position itself, it seems that we must also allow adjuncts to adjoin to the I':

(71)

Note that both of these positions are higher than those favoured by the VP adverbs and hence if we have a sentential adverb and a VP adverb, we predict that the sentential adverb will precede, which seems to hold true:

(72)aI can fortunately quickly send you the money
b*I can quickly fortunately send you the money
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