A valency dictionary of English : a corpus based analysis of the complementation patterns of English verbs nouns and adjectives This dictionary provides a valency description of English verbs nouns and adjectives. Each entry contains a comprehensive list of the complementation patterns identified on the basis of the largest corpus of English available at the present time. All examples are taken directly from the COBUILD Birmingham corpus. The valency description comprises statements about the quantitative valency of the lexical units established an inventory of their obligatory contextually optional and purely optional complements as well as systematic information on the semantic and collocational properties of the complements. An outline of the model of valency theory used in this dictionary is provided in the introduction. unique reference work with no comparable publication on the market English is the worlds most important lingua franca and the most frequently learned second language