adjunction (n.)

A basic SYNTACTIC operation in TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR (TG) referring to a RULE which places certain ELEMENTS of STRUCTURE in adjacent positions, with the aim of specifying how these structures fit together in larger units. In classical TG, several types of adjunction were recognized. In sister-adjunction two elements were formally adjoined under a particular NODE and thus became sister CONSTITUENTS of that node. For example, in one formulation of the VERB PHRASE, the NEGATIVE PARTICLE was ‘sister-adjoined’ to the elements MODAL and TENSE, as in (a) below. (A different, but related, formal operation was known as daughter-adjunction.) Chomsky-adjunction provided an alternative way of handling this situation, and is now the only type of adjunction recognized in GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY. This suggestion involves adjoining an element to a node: a COPY of this node is then made immediately above it, as in (b) below. Each of the nodes in Chomskyan adjunction structure is called a ‘segment’, and the two together are called a ‘category’. In (b), each of the Modals is a segment, and the category Modal is a combination of the two. A category can, but a segment cannot, DOMINATE. This ensures that whatever happens to modal will also happens to not – for instance, CONTRACTED not (n’t) needs to stay with the modal if the latter is moved, as in won’t he, can’t he, etc. It is thus claimed that this operation allows LINGUISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT GENERALIZATIONS to be made which might otherwise be missed, or which would be handled less ECONOMICALLY. In government-binding theory, MOVEMENT rules involve either (Chomsky-) adjunction or SUBSTITUTION.