"Give" as a light verb

ABSTRACT: Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) have received widespread attention. Research on these constructions, however, has for the most part focused exclusively on their syntactic and lexical-semantic properties. Additionally, studies devoted to specific LVCs tend to neglect the phrasal-semantic an...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Martínez Caro, Elena, Arús Hita, Jorge
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/98539
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/98539
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Filología inglesa
Lingüística
57 Lingüística
Descripción
Sumario:ABSTRACT: Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) have received widespread attention. Research on these constructions, however, has for the most part focused exclusively on their syntactic and lexical-semantic properties. Additionally, studies devoted to specific LVCs tend to neglect the phrasal-semantic and pragmatic variation brought about by the combination of a light verb with different nominal complements. This paper tries to fill those gaps by means of a quantitative and qualitative corpus-based study of Light GIVE Constructions (LGIVECs). The quantitative analysis investigates frequencies of LGIVECs in British English and compares them across spoken and written (fiction) discourse, which reveals a high frequency of this construction in speech, especially in combinations of GIVE with "a ring", "a kiss" and "an answer". When these combinations are excluded, LGIVECs are significantly more frequent in writing. In a complementary qualitative approach, we highlight the structural and discursive features of the construction and attempt to explore the factors that motivate the frequent use of the LGIVEC in British English.