arity of a [[function]]: number of arguments in [[linguistic]]s: called [[valence]] *semantic* valence of an activity: number of participants on [[discourse|discourse stage]]. e.g. to [[eat]]: two participants: eater and eaten vs [[syntax]]tic / grammatical valence of the [[verb]]: number of [[form|formal]] arguments - eat: 1 (I eat) or 2 (I eat the apple) - "univalent" / *intransitive* activity if just one participant - "divalent" / *transitive* - "trivalent" / *bitransitive* ![[valence adjusting operations.png]] important to distinguish from [[zero pronoun]] how to *adjust* valence of clause / [[predicate]]? - increasing: bringing side actor to center stage - decreasing: downplay center-stage participant to peripheral status or eliminating from scene kinds of participants (see [[grammatical role]]): - controllers: agent(-like)s - affected: patient-like - recipients, instruments, benefactees ![[valence and predicate calculus.png]] # typology most [[human language]]s mark valence: 84% of languages: valence expressed by [[derivation]]; 6% [[inflect]]ion (Bybee 1985) - even more than [[tense aspect mood|tam]] or subject agreement (though these are more common [[inflect]]ional operations) - Eg morphological reflexives: better categorized as inflectional (see 8.2.1) [[morpheme]]s indicating valence adjustment often appear in different areas than [[tense aspect mood|tam]] indicators - eg [[Panare]]: tam exclusively suffixal; valence decreasing prefixal: ![[Panare I sat down.png]] amaika - semantically transitive: to put/to store/to keep; s- = detrans --\> to sit eg [[Yagua]]: both tam and valence suffixal, but always closer to verb root ![[Yagua valence.png]] - Tend to come from free verb roots that were earlier [[periphrastic]] constructions - sometimes from inflectional operators eg participant reference forms (pronouns or anaphoric clitics) - Passive voice and perfect aspect markers are often related synchronically/etymologically (see 9.3) # sources [[1997PayneDescribingMorphosyntaxGuide|Describing morphosyntax]] ch 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arity