A Word-Order Based Account of Adjunct Extraction in English

This study presents an alternative analysis of wh-extraction from adjuncts in English, with a particular focus on bare present participial adjuncts and tensed adjuncts. I explore three notable characteristics of adjuncts: (i) adjuncts are considered islands from which extraction is banned, (ii) some adjuncts, however, permit extraction, and (iii) even ungrammatical extraction from adjuncts can be repaired by ellipsis. Drawing on Truswell's (2011) Single Event Grouping Condition and Fox and Pesetsky's (2005) Cyclic Linearization, I propose the following claims. First, [+transparent] is assigned to the head of an adjunct phase if the adjunct event forms a single event grouping with the matrix event; otherwise, [-transparent] is assigned. Second, these transparency features affect the linear word order established after Spell-Out: [+transparent] allows wh-movement to the edge of the phase, thus avoiding an ordering contradiction, while [-transparent] blocks such movement, resulting in an ordering contradiction. However, as predicted by Fox and Pesetsky (2005), this phonological problem can be overcome by ellipsis, ensuring that extraction is possible as long as there is no ordering contradiction.