Article published in:
Structuring the Argument: Multidisciplinary research on verb argument structure
Edited by Asaf Bachrach, Isabelle Roy and Linnaea Stockall
[Language Faculty and Beyond 10] 2014
► pp. 61–80

The mental representation and processing of light verbs

| Tufts University | Harvard University | Potsdam University
| Tufts University
| Tufts University
| Tufts University
| Harvard University
| Potsdam University
This article gives an overview of our ongoing research on the processing and representation of light verb constructions. Light verb constructions consist of a light verb, which is semantically bleached, and an event nominal, which identifies the kind of event. Together the noun and the verb determine the structure of that event (the number of participants and their roles). Critically, in light verb constructions the canonical mapping from surface syntactic structure to event structure is disrupted. The present studies examine this phenomenon through the lens of language processing. We summarize several behavioral and neurolinguistic studies that show that the interpretation of light verb constructions relies on noncanonical mappings between syntax and semantics, while their syntactic structure is not different from non-light constructions.
Published online: 24 July 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.10.04wit
References

References

Alsina, Alex
1996  The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar . Stanford, California: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Baayen, R.R, Dijkstra, T., and Schreuder, R.
1997 Singulars and plurals in Dutch: Evidence for a parallel dual route model. Journal of Memory and Language , 36: 94–117. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Mark C.
1989  Incorporation: a theory of grammatical function changing . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bicknell, Klinton and Roger Levy
2012 Word predictability and frequency effects in a rational model of reading. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Conference .
Bock, Kay
1986 Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology , 18: 355–387. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1989 Closed-class immanence in sentence production. Cognition , 31: 163–186. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bock, Kay, and Loebell, Helga
1990 Framing sentences. Cognition , 35: 1–39. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boland, Julie
1997 The relationship between syntactic and semantic processes in sentence comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes , 12(4): 423–484. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bott, Oliver
2010  The Processing of Events . Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Briem, Daniela, Balliel, Britta, Rockstroh, Brigitte, Butt, Miriam, Schulte im Walde, Sabine and Assadollahi, Ramin
2010 Distinct processing of function verb categories in the human brain. Brain Research , 1249: 173–180. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brugman, Claudia
2001 Lights verbs and polysemy. Language Sciences , 23: 551–578. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Butt, Miriam
1995  The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu . Stanford, California: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
2010 The Light Verb Jungle: Still Hacking Away. In Complex Predicates in Cross-Linguistic Perspective , Mengistu Amberber, Mark Harvey and Brett Baker (Eds), 48–78. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Franklin, Bock, Kay, and Goldberg, Adele
2003 Can thematic roles leave traces of their places? Cognition , 90: 29–49. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1981  Lectures on Government and Binding . Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
1995  The Minimalist Program . MIT Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William
2001  Radical construction grammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective . Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culicover, Peter, and Jackendoff, Ray
2005  Simpler Syntax . Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Durie, Mark
1988 “Verb serialization and verbal prepositions”. Oceanic Linguistics , 27: 1–23. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Embick, D., Hackl, M., Schaeffer, J., Kelepir, M., & Marantz, A.
2001 A magnetoencephalographic component whose latency reflects lexical frequency. Cognitive Brain Research , 10(3): 345–348. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Family, Neiloufar
2009 Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the light verb eat in Persian. In From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations . M. Vanhove (Ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Folli, Raffaella, Harley, Heidi and Karimi, Simin
2004 Determinants of event type in Persian complex predicates. Lingua, 115(10): 1365–1401. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fried, Mirjam and Östman, Jan-Ola
2004 Construction Grammar: A thumbnail sketch. In Construction Grammar in a cross-language perspective . Mirjam Fried and Jan-Ola Östman. 11–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele
1995  Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure . University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2003 Words by default: The Persian complex predicate construction. In Mismatch: form-function incongruity and the architecture of grammar , Elaine Francis and Laura Michaelis (Eds.), 117–149. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
2009 The Nature of Generalization in Language. [Target Article] Cognitive Linguistics , 20(1): 93–127.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth L., and Keyser, Samuel J.
1993 On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. The view from building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger , 53–100. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2002  Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hofmeister, Philip and Sag, Ivan
2010 Cognitive constraints and island effects. Language, 86: 366–415. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1974 A deep structure projection rule. Linguistic Inquiry , 5(4): 481–505.Google Scholar
1991 Parts and boundaries. Cognition 41: 9–45. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1997  The Architecture of the language faculty . Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2002  Foundations of Language . Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 A Parallel Architecture Perspective on Language Processing. Brain Research, 1146: 2–22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jung, Dukkyo
2002 Light Verb just as a Little v. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 59–74.
Kay, Paul
1995 Construction Grammar. In Handbook of Pragmatics . Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, and Jan Blommaert (Eds), 171–177. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Larson, R.
1988 On the Double Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 19: 3.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Hovav
2005  Argument Realization . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McElree, Brian, and Griffith, Teresa
1995 Syntactic and thematic processing in sentence comprehension: Evidence for a temporal dissociation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition , 21(1): 134–157. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McGinnis, M.
2002 On the systematic aspect of idioms. Linguistic Inquiry, 33 . 4: 665–672. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Newman, John
1996  Give: A Cognitive Linguistic Study . (Cognitive Linguistics Research 7.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Paczynski, Martin, and Kuperberg, Gina
To appear. When events change their nature.
Palmer, Martha, Gildea, David, and Kingsbury, Paul
2005 The proposition bank: An annotated corpus of semantic roles. Computational Linguistics , 31(1): 71–206. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Colin, and Lewis, C.
To appear. Derivational order in syntax: Evidence and architectural consequences. In Directions in Derivations , C. Chesi (Ed.) Elsevier Crossref
Pickering, Martin, and Ferreira, Victor
2008 Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin , 134: 427–459. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piñango, Maria M., Mack, Jennifer, and Jackendoff, Ray
To appear. Semantic combinatorial processes in argument structure: Evidence from light verbs. Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2006 .
Pinker, Steven
1999  Words and Rules . New York: Perennial.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard
1978 The relation of grammar to cognition: A synopsis. Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing 2 , D. Waltz (Ed.). New York: Association for Computing Machinery. Revised version in Talmy,Toward a Cognitive Semantics, MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thothathiri, Malathi and Snedeker, Jesse
2012 The Role of Thematic Roles in Sentence Processing: Evidence from Structural Priming in Young Children. Unpublished Manuscript.
Wierzbicka, Anna
1982 Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? Language , 58(4): 753–799. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wiese, Heike
2006 „Ich mach dich Messer“ – Grammatische Produktivität in Kiez-Sprache (‚Kanak Sprak‘). Linguistische Berichte, 207: 245–273.Google Scholar
Winhart, Heike
2002 Funktionsverbgefüge im Deutschen. Zur Verbindung von Verben und Nominalisierungen. Dissertation, Universität Tübingen.Google Scholar
Wittenberg, Eva, and Piñango, Maria M.
2011 Processing light verb constructions. The Mental Lexicon , 393–413. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wittenberg, Eva, and Snedeker, Jesse
2013 It takes two to kiss, but does it take three to give a kiss? Categorization based on thematic roles. Language and Cognitive Processes, (ahead-of-print), 1–7.Google Scholar
In preparation. Syntactic Priming Across Constructions: Light Verbs.
Wittenberg, Eva, Paczynski, Martin, Wiese, Heike, Jackendoff, Ray and Kuperberg, Gina. 2014.
The difference between “giving a rose” and “giving a kiss”: Sustained neural activity to the light verb construction. Journal of Memory and Language, 73C: 31–42.
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

David, Oana
2021.  In Give Constructions across Languages [Constructional Approaches to Language, 29], ► pp. 25 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 04 july 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.