Valence

Valence is a somewhat outdated concept in chemistry. It is a number that tries to predict with how many neighboring atoms a certain atom can form a chemical bond. For redox reactions it has been superseded by the concept of oxidation number.

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In Linguistics, valence refers to the number of arguments that a verb can take. For example, a monovalent verb (such as "sleep", for example) cannot take a direct object. ("He sleeps," versus *"He sleeps it.") A trivalent verb, for example "give", has three arguments: the giver, the givee, and the thing given.

For a better explanation, see verb.

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Valence is the name of several places in France:

• Valence, a commune in the Charente département
• Valence, préfecture (capital) of the Drôme département
• Valence, a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne département