"Give" as a light verb

Abstract

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.