On the validity of the complement-adjunct distinction in valency grammar

In this article we wish to consider the linguistic theory of valency and to reassess its value in the light of a review of the key distinction between complements and adjuncts. Specifically, we shall see that the complementadjunct distinction is not straightforwardly binary, as has always been assumed, and this discovery in part explains the difficulty that valency grammarians have had in formulating reliable tests that make this distinction. We review here briefly a number of such tests as found in the literature and present our own 'do so test'. We then present the view that the range of predicate-argument bindings in valency is IN FACT a six-point scale rather than the traditional binary opposition.

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