Valency patterns and valency orientation have been frequent topics of research under different perspectives, often poorly connected. Diachronic studies on these topics is even less systematic than synchronic ones. The papers in this book bring together two strands of research on valency, i.e. the description of valency patterns as worked out in the Leipzig Valency Classes Project (ValPaL), and the assessment of a language's basic valency and its possible orientation. Notably, the ValPaL does not provide diachronic information concerning the valency patterns investigated: one of the aims of the book is to supplement the available data with data from historical stages of languages, in order to make it profitably exploitable for diachronic research. In addition, new research on the diachrony of basic valency and valency alternations can deepen our understanding of mechanisms of language change and of the propensity of languages or language families to exploit different constructional patterns related to transitivity.

Valency patterns and valency orientation have been frequent topics of research under different perspectives, often poorly connected. Diachronic studies on these topics is even less systematic than synchronic ones. The papers in this book bring together two strands of research on valency, i.e. the description of valency patterns as worked out in the Leipzig Valency Classes Project (ValPaL), and the assessment of a language's basic valency and its possible orientation. Notably, the ValPaL does not provide diachronic information concerning the valency patterns investigated: one of the aims of the book is to supplement the available data with data from historical stages of languages, in order to make it profitably exploitable for diachronic research. In addition, new research on the diachrony of basic valency and valency alternations can deepen our understanding of mechanisms of language change and of the propensity of languages or language families to exploit different constructional patterns related to transitivity.

Mixed valency is one of various names used to describe compounds which contain ions of the same element in two different formal states of oxidation. The existence of mixed valency systems goes far back into the geological evolutionary history of the earth and other planets, while a plethora of mixed valency minerals has attracted attention since antiquity. Indeed, control of the oxidation states of Fe in its oxides (FeO, Fe304' Fe203) was elegantly used in vase painting by the ancient Greeks to produce the characteristic black and red Attic ceramics (Z. Goffer, "Archaeological Chemistry", Wiley, New York, 1980). It was, however, only 25 years ago that two reviews of mixed valency appeared in the literature almost simultaneously, signalling the first attempt to treat mixed valency systems as a separate class of compounds whose properties can be correlated with the molecular and the electronic structure of their members. Then mixed valency phenomena attracted the interest of disparate classes of scientists, ranging from synthetic chemists to solid state physicists and from biologists to geologists. This activity culminated with the NATO ASI meeting in Oxford in 1979. The 1980's saw again a continuing upsurge of interest in mixed valency. Its presence is a necessary factor in the search for highly conducting materials, including molecular metals and superconductors. The highly celebrated high T c ceramic superconducting oxides are indeed mixed valency compounds.

Based on an empirical study of English verbs, the author discusses to what extent complementation is predictable from meaning by examining whether semantically similar verbs also exhibit the same syntactic properties. The significant number of idiosyncrasies presented rigorously challenge approaches that assume meaning to be the determining force in complementation.