Volume 59, Issue 4

In this paper it will be shown that neither analogy nor semantic rules can sufficiently account for verb complementation patterns. Summarizing the results of a large-scale corpus-based study (Faulhaber 2011), the author provides evidence for various syntactic gaps which are idiosyncratic and cannot be deduced by speakers on the basis of their semantic knowledge of the verb itself nor their knowledge of semantically similar verbs, which underlines the importance of the role of storage or memorization of valency patterns in combination with the verb as the valency carrier.

This article outlines why valency theory and Goldberg's theory of argument structure constructions should be combined. In the light of empirical valency research it is argued that the amount of item-specificity to be observed in language must be accounted for in a theory of complementation and that generalizations concerning parallels between semantic properties of verbs and their occurrence in particular valency patterns must be treated with a certain degree of caution. It is suggested that one way of combining the two approaches is to make use of specific formal categories and to introduce a valency realisation principle in a theory of argument structure constructions.

Valency grammars and construction grammars appear to analyze argument structure in fundamentally different ways: the former treat argument structure(s) as a property of individual lexical items, the latter as a set of complex linguistic items existing independently of the specific verbs they occur with. In this paper, I argue that both approaches are good at capturing those aspects of argument structure that are problematic for the other, and that a comprehensive model of argument structure must include both perspectives.

This paper argues for the adoption of a construction-based perspective to the investigation of diachronic shifts in valency, which is a hitherto largely neglected topic in the framework of valency grammar. On the basis of a comparison of the set of verbs attested in the double object argument structure pattern in a corpus of 18th-century British English with the construction's present-day semantic range, I will distinguish between three kinds of valency shifts. It will be shown that the semantic ranges of schematic argument structure constructions are subject to diachronic change, and that the shifts in valency observed in individual verbs are often part of more general changes at the level of the associated argument structure constructions. The latter pan of the paper explores frequency shifts in valency and constructional semantics.

Languages differ in how argument structures are marked usually using some combination of word order, case-marking and verb agreement. In addition, there are usage patterns such as animacy contrasts that are sometimes associated with patterns of argument structure and verb valencies. Drawing on recent research within the usage-based approach, we discuss the nature of children's early knowledge of argument structure and how children might learn the basic argument structures of their language. We review studies investigating the role of structure-general biases, competition between cues, verb meaning and interaction between constructions in the acquisition of argument structure.