Adjunction

Adjunction is a one of the two types of movement operation, the other being substitution. Traditionally, there are two types of adjunction: Chomsky-adjunction, which results in a structure like (i), and sister-adjunction, which results in a structure like (ii). Both structures are the result of adjunction of X to Yⁱ⁺¹, but only in (i) the node adjoined to is doubled, or split into two segments to accommodate the adjoined element.

(i)	 Yi+1	        (ii)	 Yi+1
         /  \                   / | \
	X   Yi+1              X  Z  Yi+1
             / \
	    Z	Yi

Under the assumption of the binary branching constraint which rules out structures like (ii), sister-adjunction is not possible.

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Chomsky, N. 1986b. Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
• Chomsky, N. 1986b. Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
• Kayne, R. 1984. Connectedness and binary branching, Foris, Dordrecht

Other languages

• German Adjunktion
• Russian адъюнкция