Chapter 2. On the argument status of Instruments

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Chapter 2
On the argument status of Instruments

Published online: 26 March 2026

Article outline

2.1The argument/adjunct distinction
- 2.1.1Traditional accounts
- 2.1.2The argument-adjunct continuum and the existence
  of more (than two) classes
2.2Instruments in Italian: Arguments, adjuncts or something else?
- 2.2.1Semantic criteria
  - I.Semantic obligatoriness
  - II.Co-occurrence with a restricted range of verbal heads
  - III.Dependence on the verbal head for interpretation
- 2.2.2Syntactic diagnostics
  - I.Iterativity test
  - II.The anti-reconstruction effect
  - III.Ordering test
  - IV.Pro-form replacement
  - V.Cliticization
2.3The status of Instruments in Italian: Our proposal
2.4Psycholinguistic evidence
2.5Summary of the chapter
Notes