Situating Valency Theory in functional-cognitive space

This article builds on the work reported in Butler and Gonzálvez-García (2014), in which 16 functional and/or cognitive/constructionist theories were compared on the basis of questionnaires completed by experts and a reading of the literature on each approach. The aim is to extend this work to cover Valency Theory (VT henceforth), arguably the most widely used approach to the study of German syntax. We first report on a statistical analysis (correlation, multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis) of the data from the questionnaires completed by two VT experts, in relation to those completed by experts in other approaches. We then present an analysis of each item in the questionnaire in relation to VT, leading to a positive or negative evaluation for each questionnaire item. The results are again analysed statistically. The picture that emerges is of a theory which, though distinctive, has clear relationships with a broad group of cognitively-oriented approaches.