https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/ling.2022.v29.i01.p01

LINGUISTIKA, MARET 2022

p-ISSN: 0854-9613 e-ISSN: 2656-6419

Vol. 29 No.1

English Verb Valency Pattern in Padma Resort Legian Guest Reviews on TripAdvisor

1Ni Made Putri Indah Suari, 2I Nyoman Suparwa, 3Ni Ketut Widhiarcani Matradewi 1Tabanan, Indonesia, 2,3Udayana University, Indonesia

e-mail: 1[email protected] 2 [email protected], 3[email protected]

Abstract – This research was conducted in order to identify verb valency pattern found in reviews on TripAdvisor uploaded by visitors of Padma Resort Legian. It was executed as a descriptive qualitative research which complied with observation and note-taking method for data collection (Sudaryanto, 2015), continued by data analysis in accordance with Verbs and Their Satellites theory by D.J. Allerton (2006). The sample data was taken from reviews posted for Padma Resort Legian in TripAdvisor. It was compiled and analyzed in Microsoft Excel pivot table. Most of the verb valency pattern found consists of auxiliary verb with subject and predicative as its elaborators functioning as object. In terms of its transitivity, verb valency patterns on reviews were dominated with bi-valent, followed by tri-valent, mono-valent and tetra-valent in number.

Keywords: verb; valency pattern; elaborator; review

Abstrak - Penelitian ini dilaksanakan dengan tujuan untuk mengetahui pola valensi verba yang terdapat pada ulasan dalam TripAdvisor untuk Padma Resort Legian. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif yang mengaplikasikan metode simak dan teknik catat dalam pengumpulan data (Sudaryanto, 2015), selanjutnya dianalisis berlandaskan pada teori Verba dan Elaboratornya oleh D.J. Allerton (2006). Data penelitian diambil dari ulasan yang ditulis tentang Padma Resort Legian di TripAdvisor. Hasil dari analisis penelitian diatur dan dianalisis dalam bentuk tabel dan pivot berformat excel. Pola valensi verba yang ditemukan sebagian besar bertumpu pada verba bantu dengan elaborator subjek dan elaborator predikatif menempati fungsi objek. Berkaitan dengan transitivitasnya berdasarkan jumlah data, struktur valensi verba pada ulasan didominasi struktur bivalen, diikuti oleh trivalen, monovalen dan terakhir tetravalen.

Kata Kunci: pola valensi verba; elaborator; ulasan

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  • 1.    Introduction

Guest reviews are considered as a valuable source of information and often treated as a crucial factor affecting the prospect of guest in deciding their purchase (Abedin, et al. 2020). As review is belonged to one of types of text that is written for specific context, it has its own characteristics and highlights. These criteria may be shown from its linguistic features. This has been taken into account with Levitan et al.’s research in 2018 that was conducted by analyzing the linguistic cues to find deceptive and perceived deceptive speech characteristics to later use its patterns for future deception detection.

Theories related to verb valency comply with the understanding that verb has the ability to license the arguments and their placement, building the syntactic structure of a clause (Allerton, 2006). Verb in a clause has criteria of a predicate which means the activity performed by certain people or an entity (Lyons, 1995). Bloomfield (1933) also mentioned that predicate is a finite verb that means doing a certain action. According to Putrayasa (2017), a predicate is the main constituent with subject constituent placed before it or on the left side (in English and most languages) and object constituent, complement and or compulsory adverb if there is any, placed on its right side. Hence, these constituents that are licensed by the verb are called argument or elaborator, where in valency theory are represented by subject and object (except monovalent structure that only appoint one elaborator which is a subject).

Verb valency pattern according to Allerton (2006) is divided into two categories, namely pattern with embedded clause and pattern without embedded clause. Verb valency pattern without embedded clause falls into several types of structures which are monovalent, bivalent, trivalent

and tetravalent. These structures are to be researched comprehensively in order to explain the formation process of a clause according to how the verb commands its elaborators. The understanding of verb valency pattern is also essential in aiding the language learning process as it is related to the rules and basic grammar of a language.

In this research, the data taken is only in English as it is widely used as universal language. This is under the conception of guest reviews for Padma Resort Legian as data source was uploaded on TripAdvisor with the intent to share exhaustive information regarding the guest’s experience for all expected visitors from all over the world.

  • 2.    Material and Method

This research was initiated by collecting data from the data source by observation method and note-taking technique. Observation method is a research method that is performed by observing the language used on the object of the research, in this case was guest review. The research therefore was conducted by observing English usage on guest reviews for Padma Resort Legian on TripAdvisor.

The method was chosen considering the data source is in the form of text or written message. To gain a comprehensive overview and identify the verb valency pattern accordingly, we made a structured search of relevant data by determining several data criteria to be treated as data sample. After observing the whole data source, a hundred reviews were found suitable with the sample criteria to be further analyzed as data sample. The reviews taken for sample were those uploaded between year 2018 and 2019 to steer clear of variables from COVID-19 pandemic that started to affect the tourism in Bali in 2020. Another criterion for the clause was to have declarative clause which was the focus of the research.

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The data was collected by note-taking technique. Note-taking was one of data collection technique that was performed to record the one-hundred reviews which were relevant with the aims of the research. The collected data then was arranged and sorted by its clause type and its upload date. The arrangement was made using table and pivot features of Microsoft Excel.

Data assortment were analyzed and categorized according to ‘Verbs and Their Satellites’ theory by D.J. Allerton (2006) with parsing constituent analysis technique which is a syntactic analysis technique by determining the structure of its constituents (Valin, 2004). Several methods to identify the lexicals according to its types are observing lexicals that are closely related (e.g. fork and forks are closely related as noun with suffix (s) as plural marker), looking at the rules governing the lexicals when combined into a grammatical phrase, and discerning the meaning or semantic nature of the lexicals (Artawa & Jufrizal, 2018: 48).

  • 4.    Result and Discussion

From the research, it was found that verb valency pattern with the highest production was bivalent valency structure. Here are the numbers and percentage calculations of the categorized data.

  • 1)    Mono-valent

x 100% = 2.40%

62 5

  • 2)    Bi-valent

505

x 100% = 80.80%

625

  • 3)    Tri-valent

60

x 100% = 9.60%

625

  • 4)    Tetra-valent

3

x 100% = 0.48%

625

  • 5)    With an embedded clause

42

x 100% = 6,72%

Figure 3.1. Column Chart of Verb Valency Structure Data Comparison

Each valency pattern is discussed in the next points grouped by its valency structure.

  • 3.1    Mono-valent

Mono-valent structure consists of one verb that demands one elaborator to fulfill its valency. Syntactic structure is broken down starting from the foundation of its subject and object function (Satyawati, 2009: xii). English has noun phrase to function as subject which is a mandatory part of a clause. Allerton (2006) in his theory outlined several criteria in identifying a subject.

  • 1)    Position

Noun phrase precedes lexical verb with only auxiliary and certain adverbials.

  • 2)    Lack of Preposition

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Noun phrase is without preposition which contrasts with object.

  • 3)    Case

Noun phrase represented by simplex pronoun appears in the nominative case, whereas the object and even the predicative (descriptor) occur in the oblique form.

  • 4)    Concord

Subject determined the number of the verb in a finite clause where possible.

  • 5)    Obligatoriness

Subject is obligatory in all declarative and interrogative sentences, depends on the valency of the individual verb, noun phrase is usually ellipted in a standard imperative sentence.

There are also several additional criteria that subject transposes its position relative to the finite auxiliary in yes or no questions and other patterns, and it is subject that is retained in pronominal form in question tags.

Therefore, mono-valent can be simply recognized by identifying its verb assuming its potential for tense, etc. which presents no problems of identification (Allerton, 2006), and distinguishing its subject by corresponding to the criteria mentioned above. Mono-valent structure, hence, represents the most simple clause structure in English by acquiring only one subject and one verb.

Verb valency pattern that belongs to monovalent structure found in the data were all showing pattern of S + v with 30% of the numbers had its subject ellipted for various omissibility reason. Verbs that displayed such structure are return, disappoint, arrive, and recommend. The only elaborator found in the structure is noun phrase functioning as subject.

  • (1)    I will certainly return.

  • (2)    …the Padma did not disappoint.

  • (3)    Highly recommend and…

  • (4)    We arrived to be greeted by frangipani flowers,…

These four clauses found in the data sample were structured as mono-valent with noun phrase governed by the verb, functioning as the subject of the clause. Non-nuclear constituent was displayed in clause like (4) as infinitive structure elaborator (I) which placed after to preposition. The aforementioned verbs may have their valence increased after morphological and or syntactic change as in (1a) that underwent aspect and tense changes resulting in the increased valence of return from mono-valent to tri-valent with valency pattern as follows:

  • (S)    + v + AE + PÖ

  • (S)    = ellipted subject v = verb

AE = adverbial elaborator PÖ = prepositional objoid

(1a) Have just returned from a 7 night holiday with my wife and 3 children (5, 7 and 9) -…

(2a) You will not be disappointed.

(3a) I would recommend this to families and couples alike.

(3b) We would highly recommend this property.

(3c) …I highly recommend staying in the lagoon access rooms.

(4a) We often arrive at Padma,…

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Besides, syntactic structure change from active voice to passive as in (2a) shows valence increment with agent subject omission, where you is placed as object of the clause, from mono-valent to bi-valent. On the other hand, verb recommend in (3a) that was in past participle in (3) was governed by its auxiliary would to be present participle which then forms a bi-valent valency structure.

S + v + O

S = subject

v = verb

O = object

Clause (3a) is different to (3b) in that it displays different valency structure due to the addition of to preposition to satisfy the semantic nature of its verb as experiencer, thus promotes the verb valence from bi-valent to tri-valent. The verb valency pattern with indirect object elaborator is as follows.

S + v + O + IO

S = subject

v = verb

O = object

IO = indirect object

Allerton (2006) in his theory treats gerund as an embedded clause as shown in (3c) which is counted as one elaborator that functions as object, making recommend in that clause to exhibit bivalent valency structure. This is notated in its valency pattern with curly bracket when several elaborators are found to build the same constituent function as object.

S + v + {G-AE}O

S = subject

v = verb

G = gerund

AE = adverbial elaborator

In conclusion, mono-valent verbs demand one elaborator which we found in the whole data sample positioned as subject with verb valency pattern as follows.

S + v

S = subject

v = verb

Mono-valent verbs have the affinity to valence increment into bi-valent and tri-valent structure by enduring morphological process and syntactic structure change in order to convey more information in the clause that may be in the form of an object, objoid, indirect object, adverb, and embedded clause.

  • 3.2    Bi-valent

Different to mono-valent, bi-valent structure was found more productive with pattern variants and had more varied elaborator types. As shown on figure 3.1 previously, bi-valent structure dominated the data reaching almost 80% of the whole sample. This may represents the commonly used clause structure in English that consists of subject, verb and object.

  • (5)    The staff were great…

  • (6)    It was our first visit to Padma…

  • (7)    We love the Padma,…

  • (8)    …we all had an amazing time.

(8a) *An amazing time has had by us all.

(8b) An amazing time we all had.

It was salient in the analyzed data that auxiliaries were the most commonly used in bi-

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valent structure. As shown in (5) and (6), auxiliaries were and was are governing the clause as their predicates. The verb form was in concord with the subject that demands plural form as the staff counted as more than one entity and it which represented empty or dummy was treated as singular. Empty subject is a subject that cannot be replaced by a full noun phrase, therefore empty of semantic content (Allerton, 2006).

Clauses with pattern like (5) and (6) in Bahasa Indonesia each are termed adjective-predicated sentence and noun-predicated sentence and both are deemed as basic sentence patterns (Putrayasa, 2017). Meanwhile, in Marori language adjectives are considered as predicative (e.g. soron/ sorde ‘short’) with the predicative part to be structurally distinct from the verbal part (with its own verbal number e.g. –re) (Arka and Ahlaro, 2019). English has adjective and noun as predicatives in both clauses that are called descriptors. Hence the valency pattern of (5) is as follows.

S + v + AD

S = subject v = verb

AD = adjectival descriptor

Verb valency pattern of data (6):

Sø + v + ND

Sø  = empty subject

v  = verb

ND = nominal descriptor

Other than those patterns above, bi-valent structure with high production also found as verb valency pattern in (7) with object (O) functioning as object.

S + v + O

S  = subject

v  = verb

O = object

Object notated with O is an elaborator that fulfills all object criteria that contrast with subject criteria such as having the potential for being a passive subject, positioned after verb (in transform cases may be otherwise, as in object-fronting or transposition). It is different to objoid (Ö) which posseses some but not all criteria of an object.

In clause (7), the Padma acts as object of the clause and satisfies all criteria of an object and yet, an amazing time as in (8) is considered as objoid as it fails to meet some of the object criteria. Here is verb valency pattern of clause (8) which is similar with clause (7) only that the object valence is satisfied by an objoid.

S + v + Ö

S = subject

v = verb

Ö = objoid

Elaborator in data (8) is considered as objoid as the verb had did not license its object potential to be a passive subject, hence an amazing time as illustrated on clause (8a) is unacceptable and the clause is regarded as ungrammatical. Therefore, the fronting of its elaborator is deemed acceptable as illustrated by (8b) in the form of a phrase rather than a clause.

  • 3.3    Tri-valent

Tri-valent valency structure presented the second highest production after bi-valent on the

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data sample as depicted on figure 3.1, eventhough there was a vast variance with the first. There were several verbs found showing this structure. They are stay, keep, make, find, come, give, say, commend, and spend.

  • (9)    I have stayed at the Padma Resort for many many years.

(9a) I stayed in the Deluxe Chalet,…

  • (10)    The many pools keep everyone happy.

Verb stay as in data (9a) may exhibit bi-valent tendency, however it was also found consistently in tri-valent structure as data (9) with the verb valency pattern as follows.

S + v + AE + AE

S = subject v = verb

AE = adverbial elaborator

There were two adverbial elaborators that were treated as nuclear constituent of the clause as verb stay underwent valence increment from bi-valent to tri-valent. This verb when in bi-valent structure selects one adverb as its nuclear constituent along with its subject. It opted to adverb of place due to the semantic nature of the verb that designates states or internally unchanging static positions in which an entity finds itself. Duration adverbials may be plausible too for this clause. In other words, in the Deluxe Chalet in data (9a) was acted as AE to satisfy verb stay valency that would be incomplete without a following adverbial of the category appropriate for the individual verb which belongs to the valency of the verb (Allerton, 2006).

Verb valence increment from (9a) to (9) took place due to the aspect change from perfective to continuative perfect. The later aspect denotes an eventuality type which has been started and continued to proceed up to the time of the reference. This aspect requires duration adverbial and most are used to express certain process (Binnick, 2006).

In conclusion, data (9) with continuative perfect aspect called for duration adverbial for many many years, hence, treated it as nuclear constituent of the clause which was notated in the verb valency pattern as the second AE.

Moving on to data (10), verb keep displayed the ability to construct tri-valent structure with its elaborators with the similar frequency of occurrence with verb stay according to the research data. Data (10) has three elaborators that are subject The many pools¸ object everyone, and descriptor happy.

S + v + O + AD

S = subject

v = verb

O = object

AD = adjectival descriptor

Looking at the semantic nature of a verb, it was salient to the text that subject in data (10) behaved as the mental focus rather than an agent to its object. Mental focus is neither a patient nor result but is rather the stimulus of the receiver; which was in this case; it gave stimuli to its object (Allerton, 2006). Thus, the verb keep assigned its object, everyone, to be the perceiver of the stimuli.

Adjectival descriptor happy was treated as nuclear constituent of the clause as it represented a quality or nature of the subject itself so that “predicatives” or descriptors are usually positioned

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after verbs like to be, remain, become, seem, but also in the more complex structure as in data (10).

  • 3.4    Tetra-valent

In accordance with Verb and Their Sattelites theory, tetra-valent structure has other ellaborators than subject which are object, indirect object, prepositional objoid, adverbial elaborator and adverb of phrasal verb. The result of data analysis showed that tetra-valent structure exhibits the lowest rate compared to other valency structure, 3 out of 625 clauses in precise. Verbs that displayed this structure are make and transfer among others.

  • (10)    Tison and the girls…made it so fun for them.

(10a) It was made so fun by Tison and the girls for them.

  • (11)    The Padma cars transfer you to and from the airport…

Verb make in (10) gave a quality to the object which was an elaborator AD (so fun). However, this descriptor is chosen to express the quality perceived by them instead of the object of the clause so that them is belong to nuclear constituent of the clause and fulfilling the valence of the verb regarding its semantic nature. Thus, the first object is it and the second object is them. Both objects are potential subjects of a passive sentence and the preposition for before the second object underlines the object position as indirect object (IO). It does not belong to oblique object (OO) even though it is the second object with preposition of the clause, as it cannot maintain its position vis-à-vis the direct object when dropping its preposition. This may be

proven when the syntactic structure is transformed to passive voice as in grammatical example (10a), it took the subject position with semantic nature result and them as prepositional object with semantic role beneficiary. In conclusion, the elaborators of the clause (10) are subject Tison and the girls, object it, descriptor so fun and indirect object them. Its verb valency pattern is as follows.

S + v + O + AD + IO

S   = subject

v   = verb

O  = object

AD = adjectival descriptor

IO = indirect object

As how the pattern would suggest, tetra-valent may be considered as the most complicated pattern which affect its production number in the research data. It also allows double adverb elaborator as nuclear constituents as in data (11). Verb transfer conveys meaning of the object displacement process from one place to another place that require the information of the places involved in the process with adverbial elaborator to (destined point) and from the airport (initial point). Here is the verb valency pattern of transfer in (11):

S + v + O + AE + AE

S = subject v = verb O = object AE = adverbial elaborator

  • 3.5 Embedded Clause

Other than those elaborators mentioned on the previous pattern, some verbs were found to have clauses as their elaborators in lieu of phrases to fulfill its valency requirements. Embedded clause

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according to Allerton (2006) may be in the form of finite clause (usually coordinated by that conjunction), or non-finite clause that is constructed of infinitive of gerund (as in data (3c)).

  • (12)    I think I would struggle to stay anywhere else in Legian in future…

  • (13)    We would like to say a special thank you to one member of staff who really left a very big impression on us…

Embedded clause is usually formed by connecting it to the main clause with conjunction, preposition, or directly connected as gerund. Data (12) showed ellipted conjunction that between verb and the finite clause. This embedded clause is notated as F with curly bracket to express its function as object of the main clause. Here is the verb think (12) valency pattern with subject I and I would struggle to… as its elaborators.

S + v + {F}O

S = subject

v = verb

F = finite clause

The valency structure with an embedded clause of finite clause has quite noticeable high frequency (15 clauses) similar with infinitive clause (14 of embedded clause constructions). This valency structure is mostly constructed by verbs that are related to mental process or sense and perception perceived by subject of the main clause, such as think in (12), learn, aware, wish and guess as this structure has the tendency to further the clause construction with more varied elaborators like phrasal verb for a more detailed information. The finite clause in data (12) conveyed information as

to the subject’s mental perception of a concept thus was belonging to nuclear construction of the main clause.

Another salient construction of embedded clause valency structure was demonstrated by data (13) with different verb valency pattern. Infinitive clause may be assuredly identified by toprepositioned verb that is placed after the verb of the main clause. In some cases, its preposition is ellipted and regarded to be redundant to achieve economy which is termed as economical deletion or dispensable (e.g. she made us wait for half an hour), nonetheless no such construction was found in the research data.

  • 4.    Conclusion

As discussed in previous sections, verb valency pattern found in guest review on TripAdvisor for Padma Resort Legian is divided into several valency structures that are mono-valent, bi-valent, tri-valent, tetra-valent and with an embedded clause. Based on its frequency in the research data, these structures with the highest to the lowest number were bi-valent, tri-valent, embedded clause, mono-valent and tetra-valent. Moreover, it could be inferred that verb valency pattern with the highest production of all patterns is S + v + AD bivalent structure with elaborator adjectival descriptor. It gathered the understanding that as the purpose of writing a review was to describe and depict the writer’s experience regarding the product reviewed in all aspects that were more feasible to express with adjective and nominal descriptors. The other elaborators found in research data were object (O), oblique object (OO), objoid (Ö), prepositional object (PO), prepositional objoid (PÖ), indirect object (IO), empty subject (Sø), empty object (Oø), nominal descriptor (ND), prepositional descriptor (PD), adverbial elaborator

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(AE), phrasal verb (L), infinitive clause (I), finite clause (F), gerund (G), while the only elaborator that was not found was indirect objoid (IÖ).

In addition, structure with ellipted subject was found notably moderate around 67 out of 625 clauses which was quite peculiar to be the attribute of reviews text. Ellipted subject might occur as other information of the writer had been provided from data user posted next to the review body. The ellipsis might also take place as the subject was coreferential with other subjects of other clause in the same review text.

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