80 Chapter 4 Clause structure, complements and adjunctsperceived as a slight pause. Modifiers, by contrast, are intonationally unified with the
verb or VP. In writing, supplements are typically set apart by punctuation - commas,
or stronger marks such as dashes or parentheses. There is, however, a good deal of
variation in the use of punctuation, so that the distinction between modifiers and
adjuncts is not as clearly drawn in writing as in speech.
The distinction is illustrated in the following examples:
[32] MODIFIER
a. They were playing f1gppjJy. outside.
II a. I did it because they told me to.SUPPLEMENT
b. Happily. they were playing outside.
b. I did it - because they told me to.In [ia] happily is understood as an adjunct of manner, indicating how they were
playing. In [ib], however, where it is set apart at the beginning of the clause, it
doesn't belong in any of the semantic types illustrated in [30], but gives the
speaker's evaluation of the situation. The meaning in this case is much the same
as that of fo rtunately - perhaps I was glad that they were playing outside as this
enabled me to do something I didn't want them to know about.
In [ii] there is no such difference in the semantic type: the because phrase indi
cates reason in both. But in [i] it is presented as part of a larger item of informa
tion, whereas in [ii] it is set apart as a piece of information on its own. In [iia] it
could be that you already know I did it, and I'm here simply telling you why. But
in [iib] I'm informing you that I did it, and then adding as supplementary infor
mation what my reason was.We will not develop this distinction between modifiers and supplements further at
this point, but there are other places where it is relevant. In particular, we will take
it up again in our discussion of relative clauses in Ch. 11.
Exercises- Use the licensing criterion to determine
whether the ten underlined expressions in
the examples below are complements or
adjuncts. In the case of complements, cite
three verbs that license such a comple
ment, and three that do not. (There are ten
expressions in all; for reference, they're
labelled with small roman numeral
subscripts. )
They suddenlY[ij ran to the gate[iij'
I wonder ifhe ' II be sate[iiij all the time.
I'm keeping the dog[ivj, whatever you
W[vj'
Yo u'd better put the cat[viJ m!!(viiJ now.
It's always been easy fo r you[viiiJ> hasn 't it?
They swam in the sea[ixj even though it was
raining[xj'- In the following examples, show how
either case or agreement can be used to
provide evidence that the underlined
expression is subject.
i This letter embarrassed the government.
ii Sue will lend you her car.
iii Everything will be OK.
iv 11 must be the twins he's referring to.
v One of the twins took the car. - Identify the subject in each of the exam
ples below (ignoring the subordinate
clause in [iv]). Present the reasoning that
tells you it is the subject. Use the syntactic