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

(7a) and delete the element in her we are left with the grammatical sentence (7b) (7a) He sees a friend in her. (7b) He sees a friend. Ignoring the resulting ambiguity of (7b) the test suggests that in her is an optional element. If we replace see with consider in (8a), we find that the corresponding element her is not eliminable (8b): (8a) He considers her a friend. (8b) *He considers a Friend. Another kind of substitution test is suggested by Andresen (1973:54): "The exchange of one verb for another in the sentence has under certain circumstances consequences for the case of the "complement"; while the morphology of the "free adjuncts" is never affected." (9a) I have been waiting for my friend for two hours. (9b) * I have been expecting for my friend for two hours. (9c) I have been expecting my friend for two hours. The concept that verbs govern specific cases or prepositions is well established, but it is not very useful for distinguishing complements and adjuncts. Some verbs can have the same morphosyntactic valency patterns like look for and search for, others have multiple valency patterns exemplified by roll in (10) (10a) I roll the ball. (10b) I roll on the ball. (10c) I roll onto the ball. The unacceptability of some elements with a given verb may also be due to the fact that an adjunct may be semantically impossible with a given verb as in (11): 120