Valence Changing Operation (definition)

Valence changing operations describe syntactic alternations in which the number of arguments of a verb (i.e., its syntactic valence) changes. These alternations are thought to be the result of operations which increase or decrease the lexically-determined valence of a verb. Passivization, for instance, demotes a core argument (the subject) to a non-core argument, and optionally deletes it.

See Also

• Voice
• Argument
• Valence
• Passive Voice (definition)
• Passives

External Links

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• wikipedia article on Valency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valency_(linguistics)

References

• Carnie, A. (2013) Syntax: A Generative Introduction. 3rd Edition. Wiley Blackwell.
• Crystal, D. (2008) Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th Edition. Wiley-Blackwell.