Robert Einarsson wrote:

> This to me is a very interesting idea that possibly collapses the
> separation between the lexcial level and the syntactical level.

Whether it is valence grammar or case grammar or more recent kinds of
generative grammar this is exactly what it happening in linguistic
theory.

> > Have you all seen BETH LEVIN'S book, "English Verb Classes and
> > Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation?" -- there, she does this > > huge classification of seemingly thousands of English verbs by the > > > types of such patterns they fall in.

This is important if we are concerned about "types" of sentences.  In
most handbooks, there are slots for the subject, direct object, indirect
object, adjective object complement, etc.

Notice that those slots are really determined by the verb which moves
that grammar to this verb.  So, it is really not types of sentences we
are attempting to categorize but types of verbs.

Bob Yates