Light Verbs 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 Indo-Iranian languages, Japanese, and other languages in which verb compounding is a primary mechanism for marking aspectual distinctions.
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Famous quotes containing the words light, verbs and/or languages:
“The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.”
—Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”
—J.G. (James Graham)