Light Verb - Light Verbs Vs. Auxiliary Verbs and Full Verbs

Light Verbs Vs. 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:

a. He did call Susan yesterday.
b. Did he call Susan yesterday?
c. He did not call Susan yesterday?
a. He did the review of my paper yesterday.
b. *Did he the review of my paper yesterday?
c. *He did not the review of my paper yesterday.
a. He has opened the window.
b. Has he opened the window?
c. He has not opened the window.
a. She had a smoke.
b. *Had she a smoke?
c. *She had not a smoke.

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:

a. Jim1 took a picture of himself1.
b. *Jim1 took a picture of him1.
a. Jim1 took a picture of himself1 to school.
b. Jim1 took a picture of him1 to school.
a. Sally1 gave a description of herself1.
b. *Sally1 gave a description of her1.
a. Sally1 gave me a description of herself1.
b. Sally1 gave me a description of her1.

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.

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