Arguments and adjuncts as language-particular syntactic categories and as comparative concepts

In this short paper, I point out that there is a discrepancy between the widespread assumption that "argument" and "adjunct" should be seen as cross-linguistic categories and the practice of providing language-particular tests for the distinction. Language-particular criteria yield language-particular categories, which cannot be readily compared across languages. I discuss a possible distinguishing criterion (the pro-verb test) that might work cross-linguistically, though I also note that it may not be universally applicable. Finally I note that fortunately, the most important typological differences between languages concern the coding of participants regardless of their status as arguments or adjuncts, so that comparative concepts of argument and adjunct may not be so important for cross-linguistic comparison

Předložková fráze s předložkou at jakožto valenční komplement substantiv

Diplomová práce se zabývá problematikou valence substantiv, jejím vztahem k referenci a faktory podmiňujícími realizaci valenčního potenciálu substantiv. Teoretická část práce se věnuje jak valenci obecně, tak konkrétněji valenci substantiv. V obecnějších oddílech jsou vymezeny základní termíny a koncepty uplatňované ve valenčních popisech různého zaměření. V oddílech věnovaných substantivní valenci jsou mimo jiné vymezeny některé rozdíly mezi valencí substantiv a sloves a je odůvodněno vyloučení konstrukcí typu make an attempt z popisovaných dat. Vedle toho je upozorněno na vztah valence a slovotvorby a na vztah valence substantiv a reference, resp. kontextové určenosti. Empirická část práce je rozdělena do několika oddílů; všechny vycházejí z dat z Britského národního korpusu. Kvantitativní část analýzy ukazuje, že substantiva attempt a ability vyžadují obligatorně vyjádřený komplement, jsou-li determinována neurčitým členem vyjadřujícím kontextovou nezapojenost. Tím je potenciálně zpochybněno jak v literatuře běžné tvrzení, že vyjádření valenčního potenciálu substantiv není nikdy obligatorní, tak tvrzení, že substantiva (resp. některá z popisovaných substantiv) vůbec nemají valenci. Kvalitativní část analýzy popisuje možná vyjádření prvního argumentu substantiv attempt, ability a failure, ale...The present thesis deals with noun valency, its relation to reference, and factors underlying the realization of the valency potential of nouns. The theoretical part examines valency in general, delineating the basic terminology and concepts usually employed in the descriptions of valency couched within various linguistic frameworks. The theoretical part subsequently focuses more specifically on the valency of nouns, pointing out in what ways it differs from the valency of verbs. The support verb construction is introduced, and it is explained why the construction is not examined in the present thesis. Two interfaces are introduced, viz. that of valency and word-formation, and that of valency and reference, or contextual boundness. The empirical part of the thesis is divided into several parts, all relying on data from the British National Corpus. The quantitative part of the analysis shows that the nouns attempt and ability obligatorily take an explicit complement when they are immediately preceded by an indefinite article marking their newness in discourse. This could possibly challenge both the widespread claim that the expression of the valency potential of a noun is never obligatory and the claim that (these) nouns are avalent. The qualitative part of the analysis examines the expression of...Ústav anglického jazyka a didaktikyDepartment of the English Language and ELT MethodologyFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Y a-t-il une relation entre la valence (pleine) et la synonymie?

The article is devoted to the analysis of the possible relationships between (full) valency and synonymy. We first present a very short overview of positions on valency, then we proceed to present the position of researchers who see a relationship between valency (full, i.e., not distinguishing arguments from adjuncts and treating them all together as arguments) and synonymy. The article shows that since a more frequent word would appear in more contexts than a less frequent word, the more frequent word would tend to have more meanings, and therefore it will have more synonyms, and being more polysemous it would result in a greater number of full valency frames of that word. It has been shown that the hypothesis has not been sufficiently precise, because it is the word, as a form, that can be considered polysemous, but it cannot itself have synonyms: it is only a particular meaning of this polysemous word that can have them. Therefore, the analyses could not be sufficiently subtle to identify any relationship, if any, between the two phenomena. On the other hand, the results of the analyses from this not sufficiently precise starting point did not demonstrate that there is a significant correlation, let alone dependency, between the two phenomena. Kendall coefficient, which measures the ordinal association, was estimated at 0.18 in the case of the material analysed (for the range –1/+1). It was pointed out at the end that it is not possible to draw from the fact that the differentiation between arguments and adjuncts is often subtle and sometimes difficult to make, the conclusion that there is no difference between them, that the problem in fact does not exist, and to refrain from searching for satisfactory elements and criteria for differentiation of the two categories or to apply in a consequent way those at our disposal, namely, semantic implication