Making Verb Argument Adjunct Distinctions in English

Abstract

In natural language processing, identifying a verbs argument structure is important for many tasks including parsing, text simplification, and semantic role labeling. However, while most formal theories of grammar generally agree that there is a distinction between constituents that are arguments and those that are adjuncts, linguists do not yet agree on how to define what it means to be an argument or an adjunct. Nevertheless, these efforts have been fruitful in gaining a general understanding of some of the characteristics of arguments and adjuncts. This paper will explore the distinct approaches taken by the linguistics community, focusing on verb argument and adjunct distinctions. This paper explores the reasons behind why this distinction is such a difficult issue in both the semantic and syntactic community.