Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T04:12:06.269Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Pragmatics of Obligatory Adjuncts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Adele E. Goldberg and
Farrell Ackerman
Adele E. Goldberg*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Farrell Ackerman*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
*
Goldberg, Dept. of Linguistics, MC168, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 [agoldbrg@uiuc.edu]
Ackerman, Dept. of Linguistics MC 0108, UCSD, San Diego, CA 92093 ackerman@ling.ucsd.edu
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The existence of OBLIGATORY ADJUNCTS in both predication and modification constructions is best understood as following from general conversational pragmatics, rather than from grammatical factors. In the case of clausal predication, adjuncts are used to satisfy the often-cited requirement that every utterance have a focus that serves to convey new information in the discourse; adjuncts are just one of several ways in which the focal requirement can be satisfied. We argue that as a pragmatic constraint, the focal requirement is derivative from Grice's maxim of quantity or Horn's R-principle. This allows us to account for the fact that while utterances do normally require a successful focus, there can be certain principled exceptions. The appeal to conversational maxims also allows us to account for the appearance of obligatory adjuncts within nominal modification structures, in which focus is not the relevant notion.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , December 2001, pp. 798 - 814
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ackerman, Farrell, and Goldberg, Adele E.. 1996. Constraints on adjectival past participles. Conceptual structure, discourse and language, ed. by Goldberg, A. E., 17–30. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1965. Forms of English. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere; and Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
De Swart, Henriette. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16. 347–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dinsmore, J. 1981. Pragmatics, formal theory and the analysis of presupposition. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1991. A new approach to English grammar, based on semantic principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowty, David. 1979. Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74.2. 245–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ernst, Thomas. 1984. Towards an integrated theory of adverb position in English. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi, and Lappin, Shalom. 1979. Dominance and the functional explanation of island phenomena. Theoretical Linguistics 6. 41–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fellbaum, Christiane. 1985. On the middle construction in English. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Green, Georgia M. 1995. Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding, 2nd edn. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics volume 3: Speech acts, ed. by Cole, Peter and Morgan, Jerry, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane, and Vikner, Sten. 1993. Obligatory adjuncts and the structure of events. Knowledge and language, ed. by Reuland, Eric and Abraham, Werner, 143–56. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, Ken, and Keyser, Jay. 1987. A view from the middle. Lexicon Project Working Papers 10. Cambridge MA: MIT Center for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Notes on transitivity and theme in English, part 2. Journal of Linguistics 3. 199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirtle, W. H. 1969. -Ed adjectives like verandahed and blue-eyed. Journal of Language 6. 19–36.Google Scholar
Horn, Lawrence. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. GURT '84: Meaning, form and use in context, ed. by Schiffrin, D., 11–42. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchison, John. 1989. Predicate emphasis and copying in Haitian. Paper given at the MIT Niger-Congo Workshop on Serial Constructions and Transitivity Alternations.Google Scholar
Iwata, Seizi. 1999. On the status of implicit arguments in middles. Journal of Linguistics 35. 527–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jung, Yunsun. 1997. Obligatory adjuncts. Texas Linguistic Forum 38. 161–71.Google Scholar
Keyser, S. J., and Roeper, T.. 1984. On the middle and ergative constructions in English. Linguistic Inquiry 15. 381–416.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 1991. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 2. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Massam, D. 1990. Cognate objects as thematic objects. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 35. 161–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell-Ginet, Sally 1982. Adverbs and logical form: A linguistically realistic theory. Language 58. 144–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell-Ginet, Sally 1994. On the non-optionality of certain modifiers. Semantics and linguistic theory, ed. by Harvey, Mandy and Santelmann, Lynn, 230–50. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 1994. The ambiguity of the English present perfect. Journal of Linguistics 30. 111–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mittwoch, Anita. 1988. Aspects of English aspect: On the interaction of perfect, progressive and durational phrases. Linguistics and Philosophy 11 (2).203–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opdycke, John B. 1941. Harper's English grammar. New York & London: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann. 1889. Principles of the history of language. Trans. by Strong, H. A.. New York: MacMillan & Co.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 1999. Lambrecht: Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental representation of discourse referents. Language 75. 567–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rappaport Hovav, Malka, and Levin, Beth. 1998. Building verb meanings. The projection of arguments: Lexical and compositional factors, ed. by Butt, M. and Geuder, W., 97–134 Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Roberts, I. 1985. The representation of implicit and dethematized subjects. Los Angeles: University of Southern California dissertation.Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1. 75–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosta, A. 1995. How does this sentence interpret? The semantics of English mediopassives. The verb is contemporary English: Theory and description, ed. by Aarts, B. and Meyer, C. F., 123–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sadock, J. 1998. Grammatic tension. Chicago: University of Chicago, ##MS.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1984. Phonology and syntax: The relation between sound and structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1974. Pragmatic presuppositions. Semantics and philosophy, ed. by Munitz, Milton K. and Unger, Peter, 197–213. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1978. Assertion. Syntax and semantics, vol. 9: Pragmatics, ed. by Cole, Peter, 315–32. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. 1964. Identifying reference and truth values. Theoria 30. 96–118. Also in D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits (eds.) 1971. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Szymańska, Izabela, and Śpiewak, Grzegorz. 2000. Deconstructing the so-called obligatory adverbial modification—An exercise in data interpretation. Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the Polish Association for the Study of English. Wroclaw.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1988. Pragmatic strengthening and grammaticalization. Berkeley Linguistic Society 14. 406–16.Google Scholar
Vallduví, E. 1992. The information component. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
van Hout, Angeliek. 1996. Event semantics of verb frame alternations: A case study of Dutch and its acquisition. Tilberg: Katholieke Universiteit Brabant dissertation.Google Scholar
Van Oosten, Jeanne. 1986. The nature of subjects, topics and agents: a cognitive explanation. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Wright, Saundra, and Levin, Beth. 2000. Unspecified object contexts with activity and change of state verbs. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago.Google Scholar