Light verb
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
, a light verb is a verb
participating in complex predication
that has little semantic
content of its own, but provides through inflection
some details on the event semantics, such as aspect
, mood
, or tense
. The semantics of the compound, as well as its argument structure, are determined by the head or primary component of the compound, which may be a verb or noun (V+V or V+N compounds). Other names for "light verb" include: vector verb or explicator verb, emphasising its role within the compound; or thin verb or semantically weak verb, emphasising (as with "light") its lack of semantics. A "semantically weak" verb is not to be confused with a "weak verb
" as in the Germanic weak inflection
. Light verbs are similar to auxiliary verb
s in some ways.
Most English
light verbs occur in V+N forms sometimes called "stretched verb
s": for example, take in take a nap, where the primary sense is provided by "nap", and "take" is the light verb. The light verbs most common in these constructions are also common in phrasal verb
s. A verb which is "light" in one context may be "heavy" in another: as with "take" in I will take a book to read.
Examples in other languages include the Yiddish
geb in geb a helf (literally give a help, "help"); the French
faire in faire semblant (lit. make seeming, "pretend"); the Hindi nikal paRA (lit. leave fall, "start to leave"); and the bǎ construction
in Chinese
. Some verbs are found in many such expressions; to reuse an earlier example, take is found in take a nap, take a shower, take a sip, take a bow, take turns, and so on. Light verbs are extremely common in Indo-Iranian languages
, Japanese
, and other languages in which verb compounding is a primary mechanism for marking aspectual distinctions.
Light verbs are interesting to linguists from a variety of perspectives, including those of diachronic linguistics, compositionality, and computational linguistics
. From the diachronic perspective, the light verb is said to have evolved from the "heavy" verb through semantic bleaching, a process in which the verb loses some or all of its original semantics. In this sense, the light verb is often viewed as part of a cline
:
In computational linguistics
, a serious challenge is that of identifying compound verbs, which require marking light verbs.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, a light verb is a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
participating in complex predication
Compound verb
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...
that has little semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
content of its own, but provides through inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
some details on the event semantics, such as aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, or tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
. The semantics of the compound, as well as its argument structure, are determined by the head or primary component of the compound, which may be a verb or noun (V+V or V+N compounds). Other names for "light verb" include: vector verb or explicator verb, emphasising its role within the compound; or thin verb or semantically weak verb, emphasising (as with "light") its lack of semantics. A "semantically weak" verb is not to be confused with a "weak verb
Weak verb
Weak verb may refer to:*light verb, or "semantically weak verb", verb participating in complex predication that has little semantic content of its own, but provides through inflection some details on the event semantics, such as aspect, mood, or tense...
" as in the Germanic weak inflection
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
. Light verbs are similar to auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
s in some ways.
Most English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
light verbs occur in V+N forms sometimes called "stretched verb
Stretched verb
A stretched verb is a complex predicate composed of a light verb and an eventive noun. An example is the English phrase "take a bite out of", which is semantically similar to the simple verb "bite". The concept has been used in studies of German and English....
s": for example, take in take a nap, where the primary sense is provided by "nap", and "take" is the light verb. The light verbs most common in these constructions are also common in phrasal verb
Phrasal verb
A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
s. A verb which is "light" in one context may be "heavy" in another: as with "take" in I will take a book to read.
Examples in other languages include the Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
geb in geb a helf (literally give a help, "help"); the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
faire in faire semblant (lit. make seeming, "pretend"); the Hindi nikal paRA (lit. leave fall, "start to leave"); and the bǎ construction
Ba construction
The bǎ construction is a grammatical construction in the Chinese language. In a bǎ construction, the object of a verb is placed after the function word bă, and the verb placed after the object, forming a subject–object–verb sentence...
in Chinese
Chinese grammar
Standard Chinese shares a similar system of grammar with the many language varieties or dialects of the Chinese language, different from those employed by other language families, and comparable to the similar features found within the Slavic languages or Semitic languages...
. Some verbs are found in many such expressions; to reuse an earlier example, take is found in take a nap, take a shower, take a sip, take a bow, take turns, and so on. Light verbs are extremely common in Indo-Iranian languages
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and other languages in which verb compounding is a primary mechanism for marking aspectual distinctions.
Light verbs are interesting to linguists from a variety of perspectives, including those of diachronic linguistics, compositionality, and computational linguistics
Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective....
. From the diachronic perspective, the light verb is said to have evolved from the "heavy" verb through semantic bleaching, a process in which the verb loses some or all of its original semantics. In this sense, the light verb is often viewed as part of a cline
Cline (linguistics)
In linguistics, a cline is a scale of continuous gradation. While cline is most frequently invoked as a general concept, it has also developed specialized uses in various linguistic sub-disciplines.-Cline of grammaticalisation:...
:
- verb (heavy) → light verb → auxiliary verbAuxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
→ cliticCliticIn morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
→ affixAffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
→ conjugationGrammatical conjugationIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
In computational linguistics
Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective....
, a serious challenge is that of identifying compound verbs, which require marking light verbs.