Do We Need a Distinction between Arguments and Adjuncts? Evidence from Psycholinguistic Studies of Comprehension

Abstract

Within both psycholinguistic theories of parsing and formal theories of syntax, a distinction between arguments and adjuncts is central to some theories, while minimized or denied by others. Even for theories that deem the argument/ adjunct distinction important, the exact nature of the distinction has been difficult to characterize. In this article, we review the psycholinguistic evidence for an argument/adjunct distinction, discuss how argument status can best be defined in the light of such evidence, and consider the implications for how grammatical knowledge is represented and accessed in the human mind.(1) a. Timmy punched the stuffed animal on his sister's bed with glee.b. Timmy put the stuffed animal on his sister's bed with glee. c. *Timmy put the stuffed animal with glee.

Twelve-Month-Old Infants’ Encoding of Goal and Source Paths in Agentive and Non-Agentive Motion Events

“…Next, consider the linguistic structure of verbs; verbs are phrases that refer to actions in an event, and arguments of a verb are those phrases that refer to the core components of the action (e.g., In the sentence ‘John hit Mary’, ‘John’ and ‘Mary’ are core components of the event; the act of hitting requires an agent that hits and a patient that is hit). In contrast, adjuncts are phrases that usually modify the event (e.g., In the sentence ‘John hit Mary on Sunday’, ‘on Sunday’ modifies the hitting event and is not part of he core meaning of ‘to hit’; see Tutunjian & Boland, 2008 for a brief review of the distinction between arguments and adjuncts). Now, merging these two ideas together, consider the language learner: if infants represent the endpoint as an integral part of intentional events (X moves to Y), then when acquiring the meaning of a verb (e.g., ‘move’), the learner may represent the endpoint (goal) to be an argument of the verb; in contrast, starting points (sources) are not represented as an integral part of the event and thus are not represented as arguments, but rather as adjuncts – they modify the event.…”

Looking for a Location: Dissociated Effects of Event-Related Plausibility and Verb–Argument Information on Predictive Processing in Aphasia

“…The child rode the bicycle is equally acceptable, and the verb rode expresses the same meaning regardless of whether in the park appears in the sentence or not. A processing advantage for verbal arguments over adjuncts has been demonstrated for young adults in both self-paced reading and eye-movement reading studies (Clifton, Speer, & Abney, 1991;Liversedge, Pickering, Branigan, & van Gompel, 1998;Schütze & Gibson, 1999;Speer & Clifton, 1998;Tutunjian & Boland, 2008).…”

What a Rational Parser Would Do

“…The GLC theory additionally offers the flexibility to assert that different grammar rules have different trigger points. Such ‘‘mixed’’ parsing strategies allow a cognitive model to treat arguments and adjuncts differently, as humans apparently do (for a review see Tutunjian & Boland, 2008). The choice of strategy itself constitutes a substantive parameter in the definition of sentence comprehension models.…”