Longman Dictionary of

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adjacency parameter
In the following example, speaker A makes a complaint, and speaker B
replies with a denial:
A: You left the light on.
B: It wasn’t me!
The sequence of complaint – denial is an adjacency pair. Other examples
of adjacency pairs are greeting – greeting, question – answer, invitation –
acceptance/non-acceptance, offer – acceptance/non-acceptance, complaint
– apology.
Adjacency pairs are part of the structure of conversation and are studied
in CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS.
adjacency parameter n
(in GOVERNMENT/BINDING THEORY) one of the conditions (PARAMETERS)
which may vary from one language to another.
For example, English requires that the element in the sentence which
“assigns” the case (see CASE ASSIGNER) has to be next (adjacent) to the
noun phrase that receives the case, e.g.:
She liked him very much.
verb noun phrase
(case assigner) (object case)
but not:
*She liked very much him.
Other languages, such as French, do not have this restriction:
J’aime beaucoup la France.
In second language acquisition research, investigations have been made
into this variation of the adjacency condition. For example, how do
native speakers of French, which has a [-adjacency] parameter, deal with
a language which has a [+adjacency] parameter, such as English? Do they
transfer their native [-adjacency] condition into English or not?
see also PRO-DROP PARAMETER
adjacency principle n
in some linguistic theories, the concept that two syntactic constituents
must be next (adjacent) to each other and cannot be separated by other
constituents.
For example, in English, a noun phrase (NP) complement must be adjacent
to its verb, e.g.:
She threw the parcel into the car
verb NP complement
but not:
*She threw into the car the parcel
verb NP complement
see also ADJACENCY PARAMETER
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