In linguistics, a light verb is a verb that has little semantic content of its own and forms a predicate with some additional expression, which is usually a noun.[1] Common verbs in English that can function as light verbs are do, give, have, make, get, and take. Other names for light verb include delexical verb,[2] vector verb, explicator verb, thin verb, empty verb and semantically weak verb. While light verbs are similar to auxiliary verbs regarding their contribution of meaning to the clauses in which they appear, light verbs fail the diagnostics that identify auxiliary verbs and are therefore distinct from auxiliaries.
The intuition between the term "light verb" is that the predicate is not at its full semantic potential. For instance, one does not literally "take" a bath in the same way as one can "take" a cup of sugar. At the same time, light verbs are not completely empty semantically, because there is a clear difference in meaning between "take a bath" and "give a bath", and one cannot "do a bath".[3]
Light verbs can be accounted for in different ways in theoretical frameworks, for example as semantically empty predicate licensers[4] or a kind of auxiliary.[5][6] In dependency grammar approaches they can be analyzed using the concept of the catena.
Most light verb constructions in English include a noun and are sometimes called stretched verbs. Some light verb constructions also include a preposition, e.g.
The light verbs are underlined, and the words in bold together constitute the light verb constructions. Each of these constructions is the (primary part of the) main predicate of the sentence. Note that the determiner a is usually NOT part of the light verb construction. We know that it is not part of the light verb construction because it is variable, e.g. I took a long/the first/two/the best nap. The light verb contributes little content to its sentence; the main meaning resides with the noun in bold.
Light verb constructions in Hindi–Urdu (Hindustani) are highly productive.[7] Light verbs in Hindi–Urdu can combine with another verb, an adjective, adverb or even a borrowed English verb or noun.[8] The light verb loses its own independent meaning and instead "lends a certain shade of meaning"[9] to the main or stem verb, which "comprises the lexical core of the compound".[10] While any verb can act as a main verb, there is a limited set of productive light verbs.[11] Some commonly used light verbs are shown in the table belowː
| Light Verb | Explanation | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| verb | verb root + light verb | Translation | ||
| जाना (jānā) — to go | gives a sense of perfective aspect (completed action), finality, or change of state[12] | आना (ānā) — to come | आ जाना (ā jānā) | to come (shows finished action) |
| लेना (lēnā) — to take | suggests that the action is completed and the benefit of the action flows towards the doer.[13] | करना (karnā) — to do | कर लेना (kar lenā) | to do (for one's own benefit) |
| देना (denā) — to give | suggests that the action was completed and the benefit of the action flows away from the doer.[14] | कर देना (kar denā) | to do (not for one's own benefit) | |
| आना (ānā) — to come | gives a sense of perfective aspect (completed action) but also the doer returns after doing the action | कर आना (kar ānā) | to do (and return) | |
| डालना (ḍalnā) — to pour, insert | indicates an action is done vigorously, decisively, violently, or recklessly.[15] | कर डालना (kar ḍālnā) | to do (vigorously; at once) | |
| बैठना (baiṭhnā) — to sit | implies an action done foolishly or stubbornly[16] | कर बैठना (kar baiṭhnā) | to do (by mistake, without thinking twice) | |
| सकना (saknā) — to be able to | indicates the capability of performing an action. | कर सकना (kar saknā) | to do (to have the ability to do) | |
| रखना (rakhnā) — to keep | implies a firmness of action, or one with possibly long-lasting results or implications;[17] | कर रखना (kar rakhnā) | to have done | |
| चुकना (cuknā) — to have completed | shows sense of completeness of an action in the past that was already finished by the doer in the past. | कर चुकना (kar cuknā) | to have already done | |
| उठना (uṭhnā) — to get up | functions like an intensifier; suggests inception of action or feeling.[18] | बोलना (bolnā) — to speak | बोल उठना (bol uṭhnā) | to speak (to burst into speaking) |
| पड़ना (par̥nā) — to fall flat | connotes involuntary, sudden, or unavoidable occurrence[19] | गिरना (girnā) — to fall | गिर पड़ना (gir par̥nā) | to fall (by mistake) |
| Light Verb | Explanation | noun/adjective/adverb | noun/adjective/adverb + light verb | translation |
| होना (honā) — to be, to exist | converts nouns, adjectives, and adverbs into intransitive verbs | साफ़ (sāf) — clean | साफ़ होना (sāf honā) | to be clean; to clean oneself |
| apply | apply होना (apply honā) | to apply; to be applied | ||
| beautiful | beautiful होना (beautiful honā) | to be beautiful | ||
| जल्दी से (jaldī se) — quickly | जल्दी से होना (jaldī se honā) | to happen quickly | ||
| करना (karnā) — to do, to make | converts nouns, adjectives, and adverbs into transitive verbs | साफ़ (sāf) — clean | साफ़ करना (sāf karnā) | to clean |
| apply | apply करना (apply karnā) | to apply | ||
| beautiful | beautiful करना (beautiful karnā) | to make beautiful; to beautify | ||
| जल्दी से (jaldī se) — quickly | जल्दी से करना (jaldī se karnā) | to do quickly | ||
Many light verb constructions are closely similar in meaning to a corresponding full verb, e.g.
Alternative formulations such as these lead to the insight that light verb constructions are predicates just like the corresponding full verb alternatives. There can be, however, nuanced differences in meaning across these alternative formulations. The light verb constructions produce possibilities for modification that are less available with the corresponding full verb alternatives.
Many verbs that serve as light verbs can also serve as auxiliary verbs and/or full verbs depending on the context in which they appear. Light verbs are similar to auxiliary verbs insofar as they contribute mainly functional content (as opposed to semantic content) to the clauses in which they appear. Light verbs, however, are not auxiliary verbs, nor are they full verbs. Light verbs differ from auxiliary verbs in English insofar as they do not pass the syntactic tests that identify auxiliary verbs. The following examples illustrate that light verbs fail the inversion and negation diagnostics that identify auxiliary verbs:
Light verbs differ from full verbs in that light verbs lack the semantic content that full verbs have. Full verbs are the core of a predicate, whereas light verbs form a predicate with another expression (often a noun) with full semantic content. This distinction is more difficult to illustrate, but it can be seen in the following examples involving reflexive pronouns:
The indices indicate coreference, i.e. the two coindexed words denote the same person. The reflexive pronoun must appear with the light verb, whereas the full verb allows the simple pronoun to appear as well. This distinction has to do with the extent of the predicate. The main predicate reaches down into the noun phrase when the light verb appears, whereas it excludes the noun phrase when the full verb is present.
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.[20] Light verbs are extremely common in modern Indo-Iranian languages, Japanese, Basque and other languages in which verb compounding is a primary mechanism for marking aspectual distinctions. Light verbs are also equivalent to inherent complement verbs[21][22] in many Kwa languages, e.g. jo in jo foi 'run' (Ga), tu in tu fo 'advise' (Akan).
A significant proportion of Australian Aboriginal languages have verbal systems involving light verbs. Many Australian inflecting-verb classes are closed classes and very few in membership. Thus, in order to express more intricate assertions, matrix verbs are combined with coverbal elements such as preverbs to form complex verbal predicates. In such instances, the matrix verb typically still bears all of the tense–aspect–mood inflection but contributes little to the sentence semantically (i.e. is more of a function word); as noted above, however, they are still distinct from traditional auxiliary verbs.
One such Australian language with prevalent uses of light verbs is Bardi, a Nyulnyulan language spoken in the north of Australia. Although its inflecting-verb class is comparatively large with respect to some other Australian languages (~230 members), a number of these appear often as light verbs. Comprising the most frequent of these light verbs are the verb roots -ju- 'do, say' and -ma- 'put'. An example of the latter in use is:[23]
Arra
NEG
liyan
heart
nga-la-ma
1-IRR-put
"I don’t want to."
In a case such as the above, liyan 'heart' is the preverb containing most of the semantic content. Likewise with goo 'hit' in the following example:
garr
rub
nga-na-m-boo-gal
1-TR-PST-hit-REC
'I rubbed him (to stop his pain)'
Typically, in languages with coverb+light-verb predicates, these words must be directly adjacent; however, in extremely rare cases in languages such as Jingulu, there can be intervening elements between the semantically-rich preverb and the inflected matrix verb. See the following example where the subject ngaya appears between the preverb ambaya 'speak' and the inflected main verb nu 'do'.[24]
Ambaya
speak
ngaya
1SG.NOM
nga-nu
1SG-do.PST
Warranganku-mbili
Beetaloo-LOC
'I spoke about Beetaloo'
This rare but significant phenomenon provides evidence that, even in more heavily agglutinating languages like Jingulu wherein the main verb may not be morphologically independent from the preverb, these are in fact light verbs and not inflectional affixes.
Light verbs are interesting to linguists from a variety of perspectives, including those of diachronic linguistics 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:
However, the light verb → auxiliary path is disputed, since a) light verbs can remain stable for very long periods (cf. Butt and Lahiri (2013),[25] and b) since both light verbs and auxiliaries can exist in the same languages, descended from the same full lexical verb, but with different meanings.
In computational linguistics, a serious challenge is that of identifying light verb constructions, which require marking light verbs.