The elaboration of linguistic theories depends on the existence of adequate descriptions of particular languages; otherwise theories will be poorly grounded on empirical data. This book starts from theoretical points of wide acceptance among linguists and goes on to present a descriptive metalanguage, able to express the facts of verb valency, which constitute one of the core areas in linguistic description. Most of the data come from an extensive survey under way of the valency of Portuguese verbs; but the present work’s relevance goes well beyond that, and incorporates a proposal applicable to other European languages, illustrated by the wealth of English examples included in the exposition. Among the topics discussed are the syntactic component of constructions (following here a proposal recently published in Culicover and Jackendoff’s Simpler Syntax); delimitation and definition of semantic roles; the role of linking rules and their relation to prototypes; and the connection between linguistic expressions and cognitive units such as frames and schemata. The result is a notational system flexible and robust enough to describe all aspects of verb valency.

Chapter 1 Constructions, Diatheses, Valency.- Chapter 2 Syntactic Functions.- Chapter 3 Semantic Roles in Grammatical Description.- Chapter 4 Delimitation and Definition.- Chapter 5 Core CSRs.- Chapter 6 Coding Semantic Relations.- Chapter 7 Prepositions, Transparency, and Prototypes.- Chapter 8 Hierarchies and Human Subjects.- Chapter 9 Direct Schema Connections.- Chapter 10 Other Aspects of the Role-coding Process.- Chapter 11 Paring Diatheses Down.- Chapter 12 Summary.- Appendix 1 Some Verbs and their Valencies.- Appendix 2 The FrameNet Project (with Larissa Ciríaco).- Appendix 3 The ADESSE Database.- Appendix 4 The Erlangen Valency Patternbank.- Appendix 5 Other Databases and Valency Dictionaries.- Appendix 6 Why the Passive Construction is a Diathesis of ser.