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

Brinker (1972:181) distinguishes between the elimination test and the extraction test. In the former, the test is to see whether the sentence with elements removed from it remains grammatical, and thus whether the element in question is obligatory or optional. In the latter, however, the aim is to distinguish which elements are closely associated with the verb, that is complement vs. adjunct. The reason that we are not permitted to extract his field from (2) is that in doing so we would change the basic meaning of the predicate. (3a) The farmer ploughs his field. (3b) The farmer ploughs. 3.3 The Backformation Test If we accept the elimination test as a means of distinguishing obligatory complements on the one hand from optional complements on the other, we still require some means of distinguishing among optional elements between complements and adjuncts. The approach of Steinitz (1969:3) and of Helbig and Schenkel (1973:37) is the backformation test (ZuriickfLihrungstest). This test consists of reformulating the element in question as an embedded sentence: if this can be done without the resulting sentence being ungrammatical and without changing the basic meaning, then the element that has been back-formed can be said to be an adjunct. Steinitz (1969:31) gives several possible backformations for in Berlin in (4), while Helbig and Schenkel (1973:37) give a number of examples of positive and negative applications (5-6): (4a) He visited her in Berlin. (4b) He visited her when he was in Berlin. (5a) My friend lives in Dresden. (5b) *My friend lives when he is in Dresden. (6a) He died in Dresden. (6b) He died when he was in Dresden. 3.4 Substitution Test One of the number of tests proposed by Brinker (1972) is the substitution test (Ersatzprobe): verbal predicates having a similar meaning might be expected to have comparable valency patterns, though the morphosyntactic realization of the various obligatory and optional complements may of course differ. If we take the sentence 119