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. 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, 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". Light verbs can be accounted for in different ways in theoretical frameworks, for example as semantically empty predicate licensers or a kind of auxiliary. In dependency grammar approaches they can be analyzed using the concept of the catena.

Examples

English

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.

Hindi-Urdu

Light verb constructions in Hindi–Urdu (Hindustani) are highly productive. Light verbs in Hindi–Urdu can combine with another verb, an adjective, adverb or even a borrowed English verb or noun. The light verb loses its own independent meaning and instead "lends a certain shade of meaning" to the main or stem verb, which "comprises the lexical core of the compound". While any verb can act as a main verb, there is a limited set of productive light verbs. Some commonly used light verbs are shown in the table belowː

Alternative constructions with full verbs

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.

Contrasted with auxiliary verbs and full verbs

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.

In other languages

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. 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 in many Kwa languages, e.g. jo in jo foi run (Ga), tu in tu fo advise (Akan).

Australian languages

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.

Bardi

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: Arra liyan nga-la-ma NEG heart 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 nga-na-m-boo-gal rub 1-TR-PST-hit-REC 'I rubbed him (to stop his pain)'

Jingulu

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. Ambaya ngaya nga-nu Warranganku-mbili speak 1SG.NOM 1SG-do.PST 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.

Diachronic considerations

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), 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.