In Syntax Theory, a subcategorization frame is a formal description of the syntactic (and sometimes semantic) Valence of a word (especially a verb), i.e., the number and type of arguments required by that word.
In the simplest case, a subcategorization frame contains the Phrase Type and (for languages with case marking) the case of the arguments required by the word in question. For example, a simple intransitive verb like sleep requires only a nominal phrase in the nominative case (He sleeps), while a simple transitive verb additionally requires a nominal phrase in the accusative case (She kisses him). The corresponding subcategorization frames can be represented as follows: […]
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