Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Éva Kovács: Complements vs. adjuncts in valency grammar

traditional binary distinction of complements and adjuncts into a new six-term system. 2 A historical overview of Valency Theory Valency is concerned with relationships between the verbal predicate and the other elements making up a predication. These elements divide up into those which are closely associated with the predicate, tenned "complements" and the rest, termed "adjuncts". Complements are those elements which complete the meaning of a given verb, while adjuncts are essentionally optional elements which complete the meaning of the central predication as a whole. Some complements are effectively obligatory, in that without them a sentence is ungrammatical, while others, though still closely associated with the verb, are optional in this sense. The valency of a given verb is the number of complements it governs, and in a typical valency dictionary entry, a verb's valency pattern is given as the enumeration of these complements with indication of their surface form (NP, subordinate clause, infinitival complement, etc.) surface functions (S, O, Prep C) and perhaps selection restrictions operating on them. Such elements are termed valency bound. The adjuncts, however, do not form any part of the valency pattern of the verb. Tesniere (1959:102) is regarded to introduce the notion of Valency into modern linguistics. He made a distinction between "actants" and "circumstantials", actants being elements which are central participants in the process, while cicumstantials express the associated temporal, locational, etc. circumstances. The number of actants that a verb takes is stated as the verb's Valency. Possible verb valencies range from zero to three: avalent verbs , like rain and snow take no actants; monovalent verbs like fall are traditional intransitive verbs; divalent verbs taking two actants are the traditional transitive verbs - Terniere's example is hit

, trivalent verbs are exemplified by give. Tesniere distinguishes types of actants, naming them prime actant, second actant and third actant. Certain syntactic and semantic functions are associated with each type. The first actant is generally the subject, the one which performs the action, the second the object, 116