ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the way that word level heads of the same class differ in the complements that they take, a phenomenon traditionally discussed under the heading subcategorization. It looks at the distinction between complements and the superficially similar adjuncts along with what we called the Aspects approach to subcategorization, essentially the approach developed in Noam Chomsky. This employs both a variety of category-specific rules for head-complement combinations and subcategorization frames in the lexicon, and consequently involves a degree of redundancy. The chapter looks at how Principles and Parameters (P&P) eliminates category-specific headcomplement rules, highlighting in particular the role of the Projection Principle. It presents the Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) approach, which like the P&P approach eliminates category-specific headcomplement rules and highlights the COMPS feature and the Valence Principle. The chapter also looks at the relation between complements and meaning.
