It is generally held that while arguments can be obligatory or optional depending on the predicates which select them, adjuncts are optional. However, this is not necessarily true, as illustrated in (1):
(1)
(a) *This house was built/designed.
(b) This house was built/designed by a French architect.
Grimshaw and Vikner (1993) have proposed that constructive verbs, which take obligatory adjuncts in the passive, have a complex event structure, each sub-event (process and state) of which must be syntactically identified. According to them, the obligatory adjunct serves to identify the process sub-event which otherwise would be left unidentified in the passive. However, the similar sentence in which the indefinite subject replaces the definite subject is acceptable, even without an adjunct. In addition, there are active sentences which need an adjunct, contrary to G&V's prediction. Furthermore, the resultative adverbials, which are generally taken to modify the state sub-event, also improve the acceptability of the passive sentence. I argue that sentences such as (1a) violate the Say Something Condition, which dictates that the predicate assert more than what is presupposed by the subject. Since the predicates as in (1a) merely reiterate what is presupposed by the subject, their negation results in semantic anomaly. This condition accounts for the necessity of an adjunct in certain active sentences. It follows from this that not only the adjunct which identifies the process sub-event, but any kind of adjunct which satisfies the Say Something Condition qualifies as an obligatory adjunct for the well-formedness of the sentence.
