Redundancy constraints

  It is important in any treatment of adjuncts to prevent multiple adjuncts from providing information which fills the same role. Sentences such as those presented in d58-d60 must be prohibited. For thematic adjuncts, the constraint seems to be that only one thematic adjunct corresponding to a particular subordinating relation is allowed, while for restrictive adjuncts the constraint is that multiple restrictive adjuncts relating to the same index must have values which are related via containment (as discussed in Section 3.2.1).

 

Peter reads well because of the tutorials and because of the homework exercises. *Peter reads well because of the tutorials because of the homework exercises.

 

Heather opened the rusty lock by oiling it and by applying force. [cf. d19] *Heather opened the rusty lock by oiling it by applying force.

 

Sam kicked a ball at 10 o'clock and at 8 o'clock. [cf. d51] *Sam kicked a ball at 10 o'clock at 8 o'clock.

If information is explicitly coordinated through a conjunction or disjunction, it is possible for multiple PPs of the same type to appear in a sentence. Since coordination in effect builds a complex element of the same category as its components, this data can be interpreted as evidence that exactly one PP making a particular type of semantic contribution can appear in a sentence. Although this does not hold for PPs which supply information related by containment, it does hold for most PP types.