Adjuncts in Phrases

The term "Complement" is not simply another word for the "post-Head string" -- post-Head strings are not always Complements. This is because the post-Head string is not always required to complete the meaning of the Head. Consider:

[NP My sister, who will be twenty next week,] has got a new job.

Here the relative clause who will be twenty next week is certainly a post-Head string, but it is not a Complement. Notice that it contributes additional but optional information about the Head sister. In this example, the post-Head string is an ADJUNCT. Like the other Adjuncts we looked at earlier, it contributes additional, optional information.

Adjuncts can occur in all the phrase types, and they may occur both before and after the Head. The following table shows examples of each type:

Phrase Type	Head	Typical Adjuncts	Examples
Noun Phrase (NP)	noun	PP AP clause	the books on the shelf the old lady cocoa, which is made from cacao beans
Verb Phrase (VP)	verb	AdvP PP	she rapidly lost interest he stood on the patio
Adjective Phrase (AP)	adjective	AdvP	it was terribly difficult
Prepositional Phrase (PP)	preposition	AdvP	completely out of control

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Complements and Adjuncts Compared

Complements differ from Adjuncts in two important respects:

1. Complements immediately follow the Head In most phrases, the Complement must immediately follow the Head:

David [VP plays [Complement the piano] [Adjunct beautifully ]]

In contrast, the reverse order is not possible:

*David [VP plays [Adjunct beautifully] [Complement the piano]]

Similarly:

fond [Complement of biscuits] [Adjunct with coffee]

~*fond [Adjunct with coffee] [Complement of biscuits]

Complements, then, bear a much closer relationship to the Head than Adjuncts do.

2. Adjuncts are "stackable"

In theory at least, we can "stack" an indefinite number of Adjuncts, one after another, within a phrase. For example, consider the NP:

	Adjunct	Adjunct	Adjunct	Adjunct
the book	on the shelf	by Dickens	with the red cover	that you gave me...

In contrast with this, phrases are limited in the number of Complements that they can take. In fact, they usually have only one Complement. Ditransitive verb phrases are an exception to this. Recall that they take two Complements:

We [VP gave [Complement James] [Complement a present]]

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