A Canonical Approach to the Argument/Adjunct Distinction

Abstract

This paper provides an account of the argument/adjunct distinction implementing the 'canonical approach'. I identify five criteria (obligatoriness, latency, co-occurrence restrictions, grammatical relations, and iterability) and seven diagnostic tendencies that can be used to distinguish canonical arguments from canonical adjuncts. I then apply the criteria and tendencies to data from the Nakh-Daghestanian language Hinuq. Hinuq makes extensive use of spatial cases for marking adjunct-like and argument-like NPs. By means of the criteria and tendencies it is possible to distinguish spatial NPs that come close to canonical arguments from those that are canonical adjuncts, and to place the remaining NPs bearing spatial cases within the argument-adjunct continuum.