Definition:
The number of arguments (participants in an event) that a predicate — typically a verb — requires in order to form a grammatical sentence. A verb’s valency determines how many noun phrases must or may accompany it in a clause.
In-Depth Explanation
Different verbs require different numbers of accompanying noun phrases:
- Avalent (zero-valency): No obligatory arguments. Weather predicates in some languages: It rains. The “it” in English is a dummy subject with no semantic content.
- Monovalent (intransitive): One argument. The child sleeps. Only the subject is required.
- Divalent (transitive): Two arguments: subject + object. She reads the book.
- Trivalent (ditransitive): Three arguments: subject, direct object, indirect object. He gave her the keys.
Valency is not simply about counting noun phrases. The semantic roles of arguments matter: whether an argument is an Agent (the doer), a Patient (the thing affected), a Recipient, an Experiencer, or a Goal. Verbs that share a valency pattern (both are trivalent, say) may still differ in which roles their arguments fill.
Valency alternations:
Many verbs participate in systematic argument structure shifts:
- Transitive/intransitive alternation (causative/inchoative): She broke the window (transitive, 2-arg) / The window broke (intransitive, 1-arg). The same verb appears with different valency.
- Dative alternation: He gave the money to her (prepositional dative) / He gave her the money (double object). Same meaning, different surface structure, same underlying trivalent verb.
Levin (1993) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) catalogued hundreds of English verb classes and their alternation patterns, showing that verb semantics — not just arbitrary lexical specification — predicts valency patterns in systematic ways.
For L2 learners:
Verb valency is a major source of errors, particularly for learners whose L1 assigns different argument structures to translation equivalents. Japanese and English, for example, differ significantly in which events are expressed transitively vs. intransitively (Japanese verbs often have explicit transitive/intransitive pairs, while English uses context and alternation).
History
The concept of valency in linguistics originates with Lucien Tesnière’s Éléments de syntaxe structurale (1959), which used the valence metaphor from chemistry. Tesnière proposed that verbs are the syntactic center of clauses and that their valency — the number of “bonds” they require — determines clause structure.
Valency grammar became particularly influential in European structural linguistics. The concept was integrated into Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), Chomskyan minimalism, construction grammar (Goldberg, 1995), and frame semantics (Fillmore, 1985), each providing different theoretical accounts of how argument structure is determined.
Common Misconceptions
“Valency is just transitivity.” Transitivity (having vs. not having a direct object) is part of valency, but valency also covers ditransitive arguments, obligatory prepositional phrases, and the semantic role distinctions between different argument positions.
“A verb has exactly one fixed valency.” Many verbs participate in alternations that change their surface valency. The word eat can be transitive (She ate the sandwich) or intransitive (She ate) — its valency is flexible.
Criticisms
- The boundary between obligatory and optional arguments is difficult to draw empirically. Omission of an “obligatory” object is often acceptable in context (She ate already), blurring the valency distinction.
- Different theoretical frameworks define valency differently; comparing valency claims across construction grammar, dependency grammar, and minimalism requires care.
Social Media Sentiment
Valency is not commonly discussed in general language learning communities, but the phenomenon is relevant whenever learners struggle with argument structure errors. Japanese learners frequently discuss the transitive/intransitive verb pairs (出る/出す, 開く/開ける, etc.) — which is directly a valency phenomenon, even if the term itself is not used.
Related Terms
- Argument Structure — the representation of a predicate’s argument requirements
- Transitivity — the dimension of valency concerning direct object presence
- Construction Grammar — treats argument structure constructions as form-meaning pairings
- Verb Classes — semantic groupings of verbs that share valency and alternation patterns
Research
- Tesnière, L. (1959). Éléments de syntaxe structurale. Klincksieck.
- Levin, B. (1993). English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. University of Chicago Press.
- Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. University of Chicago Press.