Lingvisticæ Investigationes - Volume 27, Issue 2, 2004

Semi-compositional verb–noun constructions have been investigated under various labels in the different linguistic traditions. In this article we start from the quite well defined notion of support verb construction to present a battery of linguistic tests to distinguish truly semi-compositional constructions from semantically compositional verb–noun combinations on the one hand and from idiomatic constructions on the other. The tests are not genuinely designed by the author but collected from various linguistic investigations on such constructions. As the concept of support verb construction spans across a wide variety of languages, most tests can be applied to several languages. In the article, examples are given for French, English and German. It will be shown that most of the tests that cover the grammaticality of syntactic or semantic transformations of verb–noun constructions only present an approximation of underlying semantic properties and that to almost each alleged property exceptions can be found. However, taken as a whole, the test battery seems to be suitable to delineate support verb constructions from superficially similar linguistic expressions.

This paper addresses the problem of isolating light verb constructions (LVC) and classifying them according to semantic-syntactic parameters. LVC are firstly classified as a subtype of collocation. This step is important since it places the study of these constructions within a theoretical framework and defines the tests that are valid for their identification. Subsequently, on the basis of the reduction test (nominalization of the LVC and deletion of the verb), a boundary is traced between causative and non causative LVC on the one side and between base and extended LVC on the other side. Ultimately, a grid of semantic/aspectual criteria is proposed in order to distinguish different types of extended LVC. The application of this grid to Italian data allows a semantic classification of LVC based on a semantic decompositional analysis. This classification shows how it is possible to isolate different degrees in the function played by the verb in a LVC, according to its contribution to the semantic interpretation of the construction.

The paper is aimed at defining the concepts needed in the discussion of so-called ‘support (≈ light) verbs’ and presenting a way of describing them in the lexicon in terms of Lexical Functions [= LFs]. It develops the following six points :1. A genuine support verb is semantically empty (or ‘emptied’ in the context of its keyword).2. There are just three types of ‘pure’ support verbs — Oper, Func, and Labor — distinguished according to the syntactic role fulfilled by their keyword.3. Two sorts of meanings are often combined with support verbs : phasic meanings (‘begin,’ ‘stop,’ ‘continue’) and causative meanings (‘cause’) ; such a meaning plus a support verb form a complex LF.4. There exist other sorts of meanings (especially, intensification) that can bear on the predicative noun but are expressed together with the support verb : they form, with the latter, a configuration of LFs.5. A family of semantically full collocational verbs show the same syntactic behavior as support verbs : these are called realization verbs.6. Using support verbs and their encoding in terms of LFs, it is possible to construct a universal Deep-Syntactic paraphrasing system. Several examples of DSynt-paraphrasing rules are given.The discussion is carried out based on French.

This article aims at clarifying the notion of “cognitive nouns” (noms “épistémiques”), as it relates to cognitive mental phenomenons, for instance in sentences such as Max a une idée claire du problème (Max has a clear idea of the problem), or Max a une vision déformée du monde (Max has a twisted idea of the world). The syntactic analysis is essentially based upon the theory of support verbs. A semantic class of nouns describing the various aspects of mental activity, such as judgement and representation, was thus defined.

Among non predicative verbs such as copulas, auxiliaries and various modal verbs, the so-called “verbes supports” (light verbs) are by far the most numerous class, and, moreover, an ever expanding one. They are supposed to carry very little meaning, or no meaning at all and, as a consequence, have no argument structure. Their role is merely to enable another word, mainly a noun, to function as a predicate, which selects its arguments and also its “verbe support” (prendre une décision = décider, avoir recours à = recourir à). One may suspect that the reason for the proliferation of that class lies mainly in the vagueness of the criteria chosen for deciding which verb may be considered as a “verbe support”. We try here to discuss that problem through the description of a small subset of French verbs designating events (arriver, avoir lieu, se passer, se produire, se tenir, etc.), which have also been labelled “verbes supports” by many linguists. The semantic and syntactic behavior of those verbs suggests that they should be analyzed as semantically close to one another rather than “supports”, since the properties generally taken as characterizing the latter do not easily apply to the former.

In three types of sentences with predicative nouns in French, the arguments of the support verb can occupy different syntactic slots : (1) Luc donne des conseils à Max (2) Luc abreuve Max de conseils (3) Max croule sous les conseils de LucThis paper evaluates the amount of this type of nouns and verbs in the lexicon of French and studies their syntactic and semantic properties. The verbs in question have a metaphoric sense of quantity. The predicative nouns possible in this type of constructions constitute semantic classes according to the metaphoric meaning of the verbs they accept.

This paper deals with a particular type of support verb : metaphorical support verbs. This subject raises the question of the range of the notion ‘support verb’ and the question of the semantic role of support verbs. We can register a lot of these metaphorical support verbs : about 100 in French : e.g. nourrir une haine viscérale, bombarder de conseils, la révolte couve, etc. We can speak about a metaphor when a verb appropriate to a class is used to actualize another class : nourrir , <êtres animés : humains, animaux>, → nourrir = nourrir une haine viscérale contre NMetaphorical support verbs have the particularity of enriching and completing the sense of the nominal predicate, which moreover they have to actualize. This explains why they cannot be deleted without losing any information. In this article we present the main methodological principles for an analysis of this kind of verbs applied to the support verbs nourrir “haine” and esquisser “mouvement, description”. This study will allow us to know the syntactic specificities of these verbs better.

On the basis of general syntactic operations, within Z. S. Harris framework, we establish, for Portuguese, a syntactic relation between negative NPs, headed by a predicative noun (e.g. A não ratificação desse tratado por parte de alguns países; The non-ratification of that treaty by some countries), and negative support verb sentences (Não houve ratificação desse tratado por parte de alguns países; There was no ratification of that treaty by some countries). Support verb sentences, in turn, correspond to the nominalization of negative verbal (and adjectival) sentences (Alguns países não ratificaram esse tratado; Some countries did not ratify that treaty). Such an approach also clarifies the linguistic status of the element não (non) occurring in negative noun phrases, with predicative nouns, a linguistic fact mentioned sporadically by grammarians, and treated by lexicographers in a totally inconsistent way. Theoretical data were verified experimentally for Portuguese, English and French, on real text corpora, and the results confirm the consistency of the analysis.

This paper deals with support verbs acting as intensifiers in Greek, for instance πλημμυρίζω από χαρά, ξεσκίζομαι στο χορό, μαίνονται οι εχθροπραξίες. It is based on the assumption that the semantic nature of different classes of nominal predicates controls the presence of different kinds of intensifying support verbs and that support verbs intensify a different parameter when they actualize an action, a state or a fact. The theoretical model of classes of objects, the theory of Sense-Text and the model of cognitive metaphor will allow us to analyze our data.

In this article, we give evidence for a detailed morpho-syntactic description of support verb constructions (SVCs); we claim that SVCs must be described at the same level of detail as single word items. We give examples from French and German, concerning both, morphosyntactic specificities of the nominal and of the verbal element of a SVC. Furthermore we show that methods of corpus analysis are well suited or the extraction of such data form large amounts of text; the corpus-based aproach is all the more necessary, as most morphosyntactic phenomena within SVCs are preferences rather than categorical features. We describe a range of extraction methods, and we argue for a robust syntactic analysis as a basis for extraction. The article ends with a small case study on preferences of German support verbs with respect to active vs. passive.

We present an inventory of grammatical meanings that can be expressed by support verbs. These meanings concern basically the quantification, the aspects and several types of relationships between enunciation and utterance. We argue for the usefulness of such a description in automatic translation Spanish-French.

The Bescherelle is a well-known reference where one can look up — in the form of tables — the conjugation of all French verbs. It is often forgotten that all predicates can be conjugated whether they are expressed in verbal or nominal forms. This article outlines the basis of linguistic descriptions which can be used to generate all the forms of “nominal conjugations” in French. As the form of support verbs depends on the semantic class of the nominal predicate, we need first to establish a semantic typology of predicative nouns where the distinction between actions, events and states plays an important role. Moreover, we need to enumerate the appropriate support forms (active, passive and reciprocal). In addition, it is necessary to list for each class of predicative nouns the support verbs expressing aspectual meanings (inchoative, progressive, iterative, etc.). Once these forms have been listed, we will be able to provide an alphabetic list of predicative nouns, where each entry will be coded in terms of the conjugation forms it assumes. Such a table will have obvious applications for the automatic analysis of French.