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. Other valence changing operations include causatives, applicatives, reflexives, and so on.

See Also

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

External Links

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• 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.