On Nominal Complements And Adjuncts

In DeArmond and Hedberg (1998) we showed there exists a distinction between primary and secondary complements of the verb; these complements are distinct from adjuncts. In this paper we will show that there is a similar distinction between primary and secondary complements of nouns. Adjuncts are modifiers of the constituent to which they are adjoined, while complements are arguments of a lexical head. Primary complements are arguments of the integral meaning of the head. Secondary complements are arguments assigned by a lexical feature incorporated into the head. For example the agent is an argument of CAUSE as in (1b): (1 The window broke. BREAK <patient> (semelfactive)) a. b. Leslie broke the window. BREAK+CAUSE <<patient> agent> (accomplishment) Logically in (1b), the agent L slie receives its theta role from CAUSE, which underlies the transitive verb. When the intransitive verb incorporates CAUSE form-ing the transitive verb, the verb is then seen as taking the theta role agent as in (1b)