Adjunct and complement in this sentence

Question

1. The redheaded music student.The(specifier), redheaded(adjunct), music(complement), student(nound head).My book(Linguistics for Nonlinguists) explains 'music' is a complement because 'the music redheaded student' does not make sense.Even so, I still do not understand clearly why only 'redheaded' is considered an adjunct, and not music.I think the sentence No. 1 makes sense without 'music.' In this sense, I do not understand why music is a complement.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

I don't like either term there. 'Adjunct' is a term so general that it is essentially meaningless, while 'complement' popularly refers to modification in a predicative position.

Red-headed and music are simply attributive adjectives of student. In addition adjectives assume certain possible orders, and nouns-as-adjectives come late in the procession.

Moon7296 · Answer

Ah! I got it.

So two adjectives: Red-headed and music are just attributives that are not essential for 'a student.' So, music can be a complement in my book but can be otherwise thought as attributive adjectives.

Thank you.

CalifJim · Answer

moon7296I do not understand why music is a complement.

This is difficult. It's because we're talking about a student of music. Here's an example that may be more easily followed:

In the English French teacher, English is the nationality of the teacher (adjunct), French is the subject matter that the teacher teaches (complement). In the French English teacher, French is the nationality, and English is the subject matter. In both cases the word closest to the head noun is the complement.

The idea is that in the phrase studies music, music is the complement of the verb studies, and in teaches French, French is the complement of the verb teaches; therefore, even in the form student of music or teacher of French, of music and of French are complements. Likewise for music and French in music student and French teacher (although there may be some ambiguity in the case of French teacher, as we've seen above).

One book I've read on this topic says of certain of these kinds of noun modifiers that they are not adjuncts, but complements "in an intuitively fairly obvious sense". Talk about hand-waving! I wonder who he thought he was kidding.

CJ

Edit: It's my understanding that if you can't preserve the meaning when you transfer an attributive adjective to a predicate adjective position then it was a complement when it stood by the noun. Thus:

a French teacher

If "French" here has the same meaning as it has in "The teacher is French", namely the nationality meaning, then "French" in "a French teacher" is an adjunct.

On the other hand, if the intended meaning is "a teacher of French", it cannot be communicated as "The teacher is French", so it's a complement.

I can't say for sure that this is a fool-proof test, but it seems to work pretty generally.

CJ

Mister Micawber · Answer

In both cases the word closest to the head noun is the complement.

Thanks, Jim. Does that hold true for all adjective strings, then - or, what limits the term?

CalifJim · Answer

Mister MicawberDoes that hold true for all adjective strings,

If you mean to ask if the last adjective is always a complement, no. You can have a string of adjectives that are all "adjuncts". But in the cases where there are both adjuncts and complements, the complements are always closer to the head. I'm still trying to learn this stuff myself. BillJ is really the one to ask about "adjunct" and "complement" terminology such as the OP is asking about.

CJ

Adjunct and complement in this sentence

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