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

(16b) Harry went to Reading and Ben did so too, Lakoff and Ross (1976:105) make the claim that do so replaces all of the constituents of the verb phrase AND ONLY THESE. Somers (1984:516) states as follows:"While a do so phrase can be the pro form of anything up to the entire predication (less its subject), the MINIMUM element that can be substituted is the predicate PLUS ANY COMPLEMENTS (again, other than the subject). Thus from the unacceptability of the sentences in (17) we are able to confirm the complement status for the italicized elements. (17a) * I live in Manchester and Jock does so in Sal ford, (17b)* Harold drives a Volkswagen and Rod does so a Lancia. 4 On The Binary Nature Of Complement-Adjunct Distinction Somers (1984:520) puts forward the view that "valency boundness is not a simple binary feature in the argument-predicate relationship, but that there are additional values for valencyboundness, in particular for arguments which are to be regarded as neither valency bound complements nor completely free adjuncts, but as lying in some intermediate area," He notes that some elements are central in the predication, and some are peripheral and these correspond to complements and adjuncts respectively. Another way of saying the same thing is that central participants (complements) pertain to the predicate itself, while peripheral participants (adjuncts) pertain to the predication as a whole. The notion of central and peripheral participants is well established in linguistics outside the field of valency grammar: Longacre (1973:35) distinguishes "nuclear" and "peripheral" elements, while Cook (1972a), Dik (1978) and Halliday (1970) have similar concepts. Somers (1984:25) observes that in (18) while Steve clearly pertains to the predicate itself, in (19a) yesterday equally clearly pertains to the predication as a whole, no such clear - cut distinction can be made about with a hammer in (19b) (18) Debbie gave Steves. book. 122