The Movement, Merger And Location Of Adjunct In Minimalist

Great changes have taken place in Generative Grammar since its birth in 1960s, both in the aspect of theoretical content and that of descriptive techniques. In 1990s, the appearance of the Minimalist Program brings more reflections on theoretical simplicity. Within the framework of the Minimalist Program and based on Generalized Leftward Merger theory, the paper explore relevant problems of movement and merger of adjunct in detail. Compared with other linguistic phenomena, adjunct research has always been weak in contemporary linguistic study. So far, we still have no good phrase structure theory for adjuncts of many different types, so unsurprisingly many open questions remain unsolved, including some that are quite central to language. Based on various points of view, linguists think differently towards the question of adjunct. Some consider adjunct as product of adjunction; some take modifier as adjunct; some even posit the'complement-determiner-adjunct'hypothesis. As to the movement and merger of adjunct, people put out different arguments: movement priority, merger priority, and movement abolishment, so on and so forth. At present, linguists still can not reach an agreement and set up a tight and complete theory. Accordingly, based on GLMT, the paper first discusses the definition of adjunct, then demonstrates the necessity and position of movement and merger and at last make comparison between adjuncts in different languages. The ultimate goal for this paper is to further prove the validity of Chomsky's Universal Grammar and discover the mystery of human mind.