centrifugal vs centripetal [Lat. fugare ‘to drive away’; petere ‘to aim at’]

Tesnière, L. 1959. Elements de syntaxe structurale. Paris. Vennemann, T. and R.Harlow, 1977. Categorial grammar and consistent basic VX serialization. TL

4. 227-54. 2 B.A.Abramov among others uses these terms in Russian linguistics to distinguish various syntactic ‘potencies’ (=the ability to fulfill certain syntactic functions). ‘Centrifugal potency’ expresses the ability of linguistic expressions to dominate other expressions: this term corresponds largely with valence. ‘Centripetal potency’ on the other hand refers to the syntactic property of being able to function as a dependent element.