In this paper, we present an investigation of the argument/a djunct distinction in the context of LFG. We focus on those cases where certain gr mmatical functions that qualify as arguments according to all standa rd tests (Needham and Toivonen, 2011) are only optionally realized. We argue f or an analysis first proposed by Blom et al. (2012), and we show how we can m ke it work within the machinery of LFG. Our second contribution re gards how we propose to interpret a specific case of optional arguments, o p ional objects. In this case we propose to generalize the distinction betwee n transitive and intransitive verbs to a continuum. Purely transitive and in tra sitive verbs represent the extremes of the continuum. Other verbs, while lea ning towards one or the other end of this spectrum, show an alternating behavi or between the two extremes. We show how our first contribution is capable of accounting for these cases in terms of exceptional behavior. The key ins ight we present is that the verbs that exhibit the alternating behavior can b est e understood as being capable of dealing with an exceptional context. In o ther words they display some sort of control on the way they compose with thei r context. This will prompt us also to rethink the place of the notion of subca tegorization in the LFG architecture
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