Gradience in Subcategorization? Locative Phrases with Italian Verbs of Motion

The study of the argument vs. adjunct status of the locative phrase optionally occurring with verbs of motion in Italian, both bounded (directed motion) and unbounded (manner of motion), points to the notion of scalar change as a useful model for the argument/adjunct distinction: locative prepositional phrases referring to the scalar change component entailed by a verb (either its endpoint(s) or its direction) have an argument status, otherwise they are adjuncts. This finding has a distributional correlation in the differences in the association strength (i.e., head‐dependence) of locative prepositional phrases with this class of verbs.