Light Verb - Compositionality in Terms of Catenae

Compositionality in Terms of Catenae

Light verb constructions present the same difficulty associated with idiosyncratic expressions of every sort: the meaning is not compositional in a straightforward way. This fact is evident in the examples above insofar the words that constitute a light verb construction often do NOT qualify as a constituent in any sense. These constructions do, however, form catenae (= chains). This fact is illustrated with the following dependency grammar trees:

The words of each light verb construction form a catena. In this regard, the words in green qualify as the main predicate of the clause each time. If an auxiliary verb is present (as in trees b and d), it is included in the main predicate because like the light verb, it contributes functional meaning only.