Adjuncts

Adjuncts are elements within a clause that add information about time, place, manner, degree, or other circumstantial factors. They are optional for the sentence to be grammatical and true, unlike arguments or complements that the predicate requires to complete its meaning. Adjuncts can modify the verb, the entire clause, or a larger phrase, and they can be expressed as single words, phrases, or even clauses.

Common forms include adverbs (quickly, yesterday), prepositional phrases (in the park, with enthusiasm), and noun phrases (many years ago). They answer questions such as when? where? how? why? to what extent? For example, "She spoke softly" (manner adjunct), "We will meet tomorrow" (time adjunct), "They worked under pressure" (place or condition).

Some adjuncts indicate frequency or probability ("often," "probably"). In syntactic analysis, adjuncts are typically optional modifiers that are not demanded by the verb’s argument structure. They may be positioned before or after the head they modify and are often movable within a clause (to a degree); their removal does not change core truth conditions.

Different frameworks distinguish adjuncts from dislocated elements, disjuncts, or supplements, but the general idea is that adjuncts provide supplementary information and do not participate in the essential argument structure of the predicate. Cross-linguistically, adjuncts are common and can be expressed by many word classes.