The Argument/Adjunct Distinction Does Not Condition Islandhood of PPs in English

Abstract

I argue that the well-known islandhood of adjunct prepositional phrases does not substantially derive from their adjuncthood. Instead, islandhood of these domains derives from various factors that are orthogonal to the argument/adjunct distinction, including PP-internal structure, lexical properties of prepositions, and semantico-pragmatic construal. To show this, I demonstrate that PP-islandhood cross-cuts the argument/adjunct distinction. In particular, (i) PPs with NP complements are generally not islands, (ii) PPs with tensed clausal complements are generally (strong) islands, and (iii) PPs with gerundive complements are generally (weak) islands. These generalizations hold whether or not the relevant PP has a prototypical adjunct function.

The obligatoriness of arguments

“…These types of caveats alongside complications such as unclear acceptability judgements in regard to other argumenthood diagnostics have led some authors to question the very existence of the argument-adjunct distinction. For example, McInnerney (2022aMcInnerney ( , 2022bMcInnerney ( , 2023 challenges the distinction, and so does Przepiórkowski (2016, p. 575), who refers to it as 'just another linguistic hoax'. However, we do not reject the distinction between arguments and adjuncts here, and in the literature that we review below it is in fact presupposed.…”