Studying valency patterns of bivalent verbs with BivalTyp

This paper presents BivalTyp, a typological database of bivalent verbs and their<br/>argument coding patterns across 140+ languages. Based on a questionnaire comprising 130 contextualized sentences with bivalent predicates, BivalTyp aims to facilitate cross-lingual comparison by combining broad language coverage with rich descriptive detail. The online database provides multiple query and visualization tools, including customizable maps, as well as downloadable datasets. We outline diverse research applications, from identifying transitivity hierarchies and semantic-role clustering to analyzing language-specific valency systems and their complexity. A case study demonstrates how BivalTyp data can disentangle genealogical inheritance from areal convergence in shaping argument-coding patterns, revealing that geographical proximity significantly influences valency<br/>pattern similarities even after controlling for phylogenetic relatedness.