Valency over time : diachronic perspectives on valency patterns and valency orientation Frontmatter Contents Valency and transitivity over time: An introduction Transitivity diachrony and language contact Valency patterns and alternations in Gothic Valency Patterns of Old Irish verbs: finite and non finite syntax Anticausativization and basic valency orientation in Latin Basic valency in diachrony: from Ancient to Modern Greek Basic causative verb patterns in Uralic: Retention and renewal in grammar and lexicon The many ways of transitivization in Totoli Anticausatives and lability in Italian and French: a diachronic synchronic comparative study Phonologically conditioned lability in Soninke (West Mande) and its historical explanation Index of Authors Index of Subjects Index of Languages 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 languages 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