Complements, adjuncts and specifiers, X-bar theory

1. Three kinds of modifiers

a) Complements – subcategorize heads, ie head words are divided into subclasses depending on whether they require/allow or disallow complement phrases.

For example, verbs are divided into:

- monotransitive, like hit, break, destroy, build, invite, open, like, which must be followed by an object NP.

John opened a bottle – * John opened.

John broke a glass – * John broke.

John likes animals – * John likes

- ditransitive, like give, show, tell which require two NP objects; a direct object and an indirect object

Mary gave John a kiss. - * Mary gave John.

- obligatorily intransitive, like faint, fall, disappear, wake up, which cannot be followed by an object NP

- optionally transitive like shave, sing, which may but do not have to take NP objects.

Mary shaved her legs. - John shaved.

Mary sang a song - John cannot sing.

All direct and indirect objects in VPs are complements.

Similarly, nouns will divide into those that can take “of” prepositional phrases or clauses (non relative) as modifiers and those which cannot

the student of English - * the student that dragons exist

the belief that dragons exist - * the belief of English

* the girl of English – * the girl that dragons exist

“of” prepositional phrases and clauses (non-relative) which follow the head noun In NP are complements.

In English, complements always follow thr head word in aphrase.

b) Adjuncts - do not subcategorize heads, are not restricted by the type of word selected to fill the head position.

For example, verbs are not divided into those that must, can or cannot be modified by the adverbial phrases of time:

John often faints. -- John fainted yesterday – John fainted

Mary often breaks her legs. - Mary broke her leg yesterday – Mary broke her leg

Similarly, nouns are not divided into those which must, can or cannot be modified by AP and those which cannot, e.g.

old student

old claim

old girl

The number of adjuncts in a phrase is not determined by the type of the head word. In fact there are no grammatical restriction on the number of possible adjuncts, e.g. unlimited number of AdjPs which may modify a single head noun.

This young tall pretty intelligent ……. girl

c) S pecifiers - a phrase or a single word in the initial position of a phrase. It does not subcategorize heads, ie it is not a complement. The strict limitation on the number of specifiers (only one in a phrase) shows that it is not an adjunct either.

The typical example of a specifier is a determiner in an NP.

the/some/no/my boys