Postgraduate Aspirations IV: Motivations

I realized this morning as I was on my way to school that perhaps not every reader of this humble blog is familiar with the term or concept of "valency." Since this is what I would like to research, I thought I would delve into a brief discussion of it--not so much what it is (I'd love to share a Belgian beer or coffee with you and go there), but what its worth. Why valency?

1. It can assist language-learners and instructors in seeing the language and its issues (especially syntax) in predictable, clear systems.
2. It can improve lexicographical method and output, producing more precise and usable semantic/pragmatic definitions for verbs
3. It can, in general, help readers to read/translate with more consistency and with greater ease than is usually possible with the current offering of morpho-syntactic descriptions and lexicography.
4. It is a field of research which has been highly active in English, German, Dutch and so-called "exotic" languages, but barely active as applied to any of the Northwest Semitic languages, especially Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.

In other words, I want to study valency because it helps people to read Hebrew better.



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