- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures and tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Conceptualizations of Grammar in the History of English Grammaticology
- Syntactic Argumentation
- Grammar and the Use of Data
- Grammar and Corpus Methodology
- Cognitive Linguistic Approaches
- Constructional Approaches
- Dependency and Valency Approaches
- Generative Approaches
- Functional Approaches
- Modern and Traditional Descriptive Approaches
- Theoretical Approaches to Morphology
- Inflection and Derivation
- Compounds
- Word Classes
- Phrase Structure
- Noun Phrases
- Clause Structure, Complements, and Adjuncts
- Clause Types and Speech Act Functions
- Tense and Aspect
- Mood and Modality
- Subordination and Coordination
- Information Structure
- Grammar and Lexis
- Grammar and Phonology
- Grammar and Meaning
- Grammar and Discourse
- Change in Grammar
- Regional Varieties of English: Non-standard grammatical features
- Global Variation in the Anglophone World
- Genre Variation
- Literary Variation
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter discusses central concepts in clause structure such as the notion of ‘head’ and the distinction between ‘complements’ and ‘adjuncts’. The different ways in which constituency and dependency grammars approach clausal heads are examined, and modern analyses are juxtaposed with the grammatical tradition. Regarding the distinction between complements and adjuncts, two important issues are discussed: its relevance to the clause’s semantic structure and how to determine obligatoriness, the defining characteristic of complements. The use of the term ‘complement’ to refer to clauses construed as core arguments of main predicates is also explored, particularly the challenge of explaining complement choice with individual verbs, either by means of a general complement binding hierarchy or particular subcategorization features attached to each verb.
Keywords: clause structure, clausal heads, complements, complementation, adjuncts, dependency grammar, constituency grammar, subcategorization, binding hierarchy, X-bar theory
Patrick Duffley is Professor of English Linguistics at Université Laval in Quebec City. He has published monographs on the infinitive, the gerund-participle, and complementation in English, as well as a number of articles on modal auxiliaries, wh-words, negative polarity, and indefinite determiners. His work utilizes concepts inspired by cognitive grammar and Guillaumian psychomechanical theory in order to develop a semantico-pragmatic approach to grammar and syntax. He recently published a monograph with John Benjamins applying this approach to the phenomenon of subject versus non-subject control with non-finite verbal complements in English.
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- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures and tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Conceptualizations of Grammar in the History of English Grammaticology
- Syntactic Argumentation
- Grammar and the Use of Data
- Grammar and Corpus Methodology
- Cognitive Linguistic Approaches
- Constructional Approaches
- Dependency and Valency Approaches
- Generative Approaches
- Functional Approaches
- Modern and Traditional Descriptive Approaches
- Theoretical Approaches to Morphology
- Inflection and Derivation
- Compounds
- Word Classes
- Phrase Structure
- Noun Phrases
- Clause Structure, Complements, and Adjuncts
- Clause Types and Speech Act Functions
- Tense and Aspect
- Mood and Modality
- Subordination and Coordination
- Information Structure
- Grammar and Lexis
- Grammar and Phonology
- Grammar and Meaning
- Grammar and Discourse
- Change in Grammar
- Regional Varieties of English: Non-standard grammatical features
- Global Variation in the Anglophone World
- Genre Variation
- Literary Variation
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
