Information AboutValency (linguistics) |
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The linguistical meaning of valence is derived from the definition of Valency in Chemistry . Valency is closely related, though not identical, to transitivity. Transitivity refers to the number of core arguments of the verb that are not optional (giving Intransitive Verb s, Transitive Verb s, and Ditransitive Verb s). For example: :(1) ''Newlyn lies.'' (valency of lie = 1, intransitive) :(2) ''John kicks the ball.'' (valency of kick = 2, transitive) :(3) ''John gives Mary a flower.'' (valency of give = 3, ditransitive) The concept of valency is however undermined by the fact that non-optional or ''core'' meanings are hard to pin down. For example: :(4) ''Ask, and God will give.'' :(5) ''John kicks Mary the ball.'' :(6) ''The horse kicks.'' and it becomes rather difficult to define what is non-optional. Modern trends such as Cognitive Grammar s take the view that optionality is a gradation, i.e. different arguments have different degree of co-occurrence, and this makes valency a moot issue. Lexical Valency The term valence has a related technical meaning in Lexical Semantics that elaborates on the role of argument structure - it refers to the capacity of other lexical units to combine with the given word. For instance, valence is one of the elements defining a construction in some Construction Grammar s. This sense of the term, sometimes called Lexical Valency, is related to the above, but is far richer than the numerical notion inherited from Chemistry. SEE ALSO
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