Valency of fact and valency of argumentation

The paper discusses certain Russian verbs that have so far been considered as having the valency of content: otnekivat’sja ‘to deny,’ izvinjat’sja ‘to apologize,’ opravdyvat’sja ‘to make excuses,’ otgovarivat’sja ‘to dissuade,’ otbrexivat’sja ‘to rebute,’ otpirat’sja ‘to disown,’ vozmushchat’sja ‘to resent,’ vozrazhat’ ‘to object,’ sporit’ ‘to argue,’ etc. We hypothesize that in reality these valencies should be split into two notably different ones: the valency of fact and the valency of argumentation. The first case could be illustrared by an example like: On izvinjalsja, čto ne prišel na moj den’ roždenija ‘He apologized that he did not come to my birthday party,’ and the second case by an example such as: On izvinjalsja, čto den’ roždenija načinalsja sliškom rano ‘He apologized that the birthday party started too early’ (and as such he could not get there on time). Since both valencies are often implemented by the same means, it is certain to create ambiguities. E.g. the sentence Ja vozražal, čto ego prinjali na rabotu may mean either that I did not like the fact that he was hired; or that I don’t believe, in contrast to others, that he was indeed hired.’ It is shown that such a split of valencies is essentially different from the situation in which the valency of content is split into the content proper (as in On ne znal, čto Petja uexal ‘He did not know that Pete had left’) and the topic (as in On ne znal o Pete ‘He did not know about Pete’).