Light verbs: Synchronic and diachronic studies

Light verbs are semantically reduced verbs that simultaneously exhibit a heavy verb usage. The papers collected in this volume examine light verbs from different perspectives in various languages, including several Romance and Germanic languages such as Italian, Spanish, Catalan, German, and English, as well as Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.

The questions addressed in this volume include: What meaning does a light verb contribute to a light verb construction? What restrictions regarding nominal elements do light verbs exhibit? What influence do light verbs have on the argument structure of light verb constructions?

The analyses draw on different frameworks, including Generative Syntax and Construction Grammar, and combine corpus linguistic investigations with theoretical modeling.