Herbst Valency Analysis

Complements and Adjuncts in Valency Theory

One of the most relevant aspects about verb is that it has an essential role in various sentence patterns. That is, selected verb for a sentence governs the basic structure of the sentence. "Although some verbs may occur in more than one structure, many verbs are nevertheless limited to occurring in one kind of sentence structure" [Allerton 1982:2]. David Allerton described the concept of valency as different facilities that verb has for participating in various sentence structures. That is, valency – is verb’s capacity to cooperate with certain parts of sentence constituents. In this case, valency is compared with a chemical element which in the same way has potentials ‘for combining with a fixed

According to Prof. Th. Herbst “Valency analysis concentrates on the relationships that hold between a valency carrier (sometimes also called predicator) and those elements whose occurrence in a sentence is related to the presence of that valency carrier, i.e. those elements which can be governed by it”. [Herbst 2010:183]. In comparison with Allerton and Tesniére, Herbst supports the idea of verb’s central role in determining the structure of clauses, but at the same time the verb “takes formal considerations as its starting point” [Herbst 2010:183]. Allerton (1982) and Emons (1974, 1978) were the first who suggested “the first two models that offer a fairly comprehensive treatment of English verb valency” [Herbst 2010:183], but at the same both these approaches have diversities. In terms of English syntax Herbst and Shüller (2008) created a new approach which present a combination of traditional grammar and valency theory.

In the valency theory verb takes a central position, as it determines “how many other elements have to occur in order to form a grammatical sentence” [Herbst 2004: xxiv], e.g. in active declarative clause some verbs require only one element, while other verbs may have two or more elements. In valency theory these elements have their own term – complements. Moreover, sentences can also contain other elements, which are “not dependent

That is, adjuncts are -indpendent elements in the sentence from the governing verb.

The main idea of the valency theory is distinction between complements and ajuncts. Generally there two points which are helpful to distinguish these elements. Obersving, the aspect of ajuncts, the following features can be mentioned as the basic:

«(i) they occur relatively freely;

(ii) they are not determined in their form by the governing verb» [Herbst 2004: xxiv] The second point (ii) can be proved, if the adjunct can be replaced by a «prepositional pharse, an adverb phrase or an adverbial clause» [Herbst 2004: xxiv]. Consider the following examples, provided by Prof. Dr. Thomas Herbst in his work «Valency theory and the Valency Dictionary of English. A few remarks on the linguistic and lexicogprahic principles»:

«(3) c. I put paper and kindling by the fire at 5 p.m. d. I put paper and kindling by the fire then. e. I put paper and kindling by the fire before I went to bed.» [Herbst 2004: xxv].

One of the main aspects of valency theory is «analysis of the complements of verbs, adjectives and nouns, i.e. the speific complementation patterns occurring with a particular lexeme» [Herbst 2004: