From the heavy to the light verb
An analysis of tomar ‘to take’
Begoña Sanromán Vilas | University of Helsinki
The study aims to show that the selection of the Spanish light verb tomar ‘to take’ within a light verb construction (LVC), rather than being arbitrary, is based on its meaning. To support this claim the hypothesis of semantic compatibility is tested. According to this hypothesis, light verbs are paradigmatically related to their heavier counterparts and syntagmatically to the nouns within the same LVC by means of components of meaning called lexical features. After a fine-grained analysis of the polysemous verb tomar, the study provides a tentative list of lexical features that function as semantic links between the lexical units within the polysemous tomar, as well as elements of semantic agreement between the components within the same LVC.
Keywords: light verb construction, collocation, lexical features, semantic links, semantic agreement, polysemy, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations
This article is currently available as a sample
article.
Published online: 26 February 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00005.san
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00005.san
Full-text
Bibliography
Bibliography
List of specific sources of the examples
(14) Created by me.
(15) Created by me.
(19b) , Peru: M. Á. Ruiz Orbegoso (2003) Sugerencias para aprender a exponer en público. Montevideo: http://www.librosenred.com.
(31) , Costa Rica: Micronoticiero, 21/11/1, Radio Columbia.
(46) Chile: La Tercera 14/1/2009] http://www.latercera.com/noticia/alemana-cruzara-a-nado-pacifico-costarricense-en-defensa-de-especies-marinas/
References
ADESSE: Base de datos de verbos, alternancias de diátesis y esquemas sintáctico semánticos del español
Database of Spanish verbs, diathesis alternations and sintactic and semantic information]. http://adesse.uvigo.es/
Alonso-Ramos, M.
[ p. 269 ]
Apresjan, J. D.
(2009) The theory of lexical functions. An update. In B. Beck, K. Gerdes, J. Milićević, & A. Polguère (Eds.), Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Meaning-Text theory (MTT2009) (pp. 1–14). Montréal: Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST). http://olst.ling.umontreal.ca/pdf/ProceedingsMTT09.pdf
Apresjan, J. D., & Glovinskaja, M. J.
(2007) Two projects. English ECD and Russian production dictionary. In K. Gerdes, R. Tilmann, & L. Wanner (Eds.), Proceedings of the third international conference on Meaning-Text theory (MTT2007) (pp. 31–46). Wien/München: Wiener Slawistischer Almanach/Sonderband 69. http://meaningtext.net/mtt2007/proceedings/complete.proceedings.mtt2007.pdf
Barrios Rodríguez, M. A.
(2010) El dominio de las funciones léxicas en el marco de la teoría Sentido-Texto. Estudios de lingüística del español (ELiEs) [The domain of lexical functions in the framework of the Meaning-Text theory]. http://elies.rediris.es/elies30/index30.html
Battaner, P.
(2011) Los verbos de frecuencia alta y el diccionario de aprendizaje [High frequency verbs and the learning dictionary]. In M. E. Vázquez Laslop, K. Zimmermann, & F. Segovia (Eds.), De la lengua por sólo la extrañeza. Estudios de lexicología, norma lingüística, historia y literatura en homenaje a Luis Fernando Lara, vol. 1 (pp. 313–332). D.F. México: El Colegio de México.
Bosque, I.
Butt, M.
(2003) The light verb jungle. Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics, 9, 1–49. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.111.4948&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Butt, M., & Geuder, W.
CLAVE
= Maldonado, C. (Dir.) (2007) Clave. Diccionario de uso del español actual [Clave. Usage dictionary for contemporary Spanish]. Madrid, SM. http://clave.smdiccionarios.com/app.php
Colson, J. -P.
CORPES XXI = Real Academia Española (RAE)
[ p. 270 ]
(2013), Corpus del español del siglo xxi
[Corpus of the xxist century Spanish language]. http://web.frl.es/CORPES/view/inicioExterno.view
CREA = Real Academia Española (RAE)
(2008), Corpus de referencia del español actual [Reference corpus of contemporary Spanish]. http://www.rae.es
DEA
DELE
De Miguel, E.
(2006) Tensión y equilibrio semántico entre nombres y verbos: el reparto de la tarea de predicar [Semantic tension and balance between nouns and verbs: The distribution of the task of predicating]. In M. Villayandre Llamazares (Ed.), Actas del XXXV simposio internacional de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística (pp. 1289–1313). León: Universidad de León. http://www3.unileon.es/dp/dfh/SEL/actas,htm
(2008) Construcciones con verbos de apoyo en español. De cómo entran los nombres en la órbita de los verbos [Constructions with support verbs. About how nouns enter into the orbit of the verbs]. In I. Olza Moreno, M. Casado Velarde, & R. González Ruiz (Eds.), Actas del XXXVII simposio internacional de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística (SEL) (pp. 567–578). Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra. http://www.unav.es/linguis/simposiosel/actas/
DiCE
= Alonso Ramos, M. (2004) Diccionario de colocaciones del español [Dictionary of Spanish collocations]. http://www.dicesp.com
DRAE = Real Academia Española (RAE)
(2001) Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish language] (22nd ed.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe. http://www.rae.es/recursos/diccionarios/drae
DSLE
= Gutiérrez Cuadrado, J. (Dir.) (2006) Diccionario Salamanca de la lengua española [Salamanca dictionary of the Spanish language]. Madrid: Santillana. http://fenix.cnice.mec.es/diccionario/
Duarte, I., Gonçalves, A., Miguel, M., Mendes, A., Hendrickx, I., Oliveira, F., Cunha, L. F., Silva, F., & Silvano, P.
(2010) Light verbs features in European Portuguese. In P. M. Bertinetto et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the second interdisciplinary workshop on verbs. The identification and representation of Verb Features (pp. 27–31). Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore/Università di Pisa. http://www.ims.unistuttgart.de/institut/mitarbeiter/schulte/publications/proceedings/verbs-10.pdf
DUE
Faber, P. B., & Mairal Usón, R.
Giry-Schneider, J.
Gonçalves, A., Oliveira, F., Miguel, M., Mendes, A., Cunha, L. F., Silvano, P., Duarte, I., Silva, F., & Colaço, M.
[ p. 271 ]
(2010) Propriedades predicativas dos verbos leves dar, ter e fazer: estrutura argumental e eventiva [Predicate properties of light verbs dar ‘to give’, ter ‘to have’ and fazer ’to do/have’]. In P. Cano López et al. (Eds.), Actas del XXXIX simposio internacional de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística. Santiago de Compostela: Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
Jackendoff, R.
Koike, K.
LEMA
Levin, B.
Martín Mingorance, L.
(1998) Las unidades sintagmáticas verbales en inglés y en español. Metodología de análisis [Verbal syntagmatic units in English and Spanish. Methodology of analysis]. In A. Marín Rubiales (Ed.), El modelo lexemático-funcional. El legado lingüístico de Leocadio Martín Mingorance (pp. 19–31). Granada, Universidad de Granada.
Mel’čuk, I.
Mel’čuk, Igor et al.
Mel’čuk, I., Clas, A., & Polguère, A.
[ p. 272 ]
Montagna, D.
(2015) Eventos y entidades que se pueden echar: Combinatoria léxica y representación del significado de un verbo polisémico [Events and entities that can be thrown: Lexical combinatory and representation of the meaning of a polysemous verb]. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. https://repositorio.uam.es/bitstream/handle/10486/668021/montagna_dora.pdf?sequence=1
Norvig, P., & Lakoff, G.
Pastor Millán, M. A.
PRÁCTICO
REDES
Reuther, T.
Sanromán Vilas, B.
(2009a) Diferencias semánticas entre construcciones con verbo de apoyo y sus correlatos verbales simples [Semantic differences between support verb constructions and their correlated single verbs]. ELUA: Estudios Lingüísticos de la Universidad de Alicante, 23, 289–314. http://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/14757/1/ELUA_23_13.pdf
(2009b) Towards a semantically oriented selection of the values of Oper1. The case of «golpe» ‘blow’ in Spanish. In D. Beck et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Meaning-Text Theory (MTT2009) (pp. 327–337). Montréal: Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST). http://olst.ling.umontreal.ca/pdf/ProceedingsMTT09.pdf
(2011b) The unbearable lightness of light verbs. Are they semantically empty verbs? In I. Boguslawsky, & L. Wanner (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Meaning-Text theory (MTT2011) (pp. 253–263). Barcelona: Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST). http://meaningtext.net/mtt2011/proceedings/papers/Sanroman.pdf
(2012a) La hipótesis de la compatibilidad semántica en la selección de los verbos de apoyo [The hypothesis of semantic compatibility in the selection of light verbs]. In E. Ridruejo Alonso et al. (Eds.), Tradición y progreso en la lingüística general (pp. 355–372). Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid.
(2012b) La representación de las relaciones espaciales en la descripción de los verbos de apoyo [The representation of spatial relations in the description of light verbs]. In J. Apresjan, I. Boguslavsky, M. -C. L’Homme, L. Iomdin, J. Milicevic, A. Polguère, & L. Wanner (Eds.), Meaning, texts and other exciting things. A festschrift to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Professor Igor Alexandrovic Mel’čuk (Studia Philologica) (pp. 538–553). Moscow: Jazyki slajanskoj kultury.
(2013b) In search of semantic links between nouns and light verbs. Some evidence from Spanish. In V. Apresjan, B. Iomdin, & E. Ageeva (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Meaning-Text theory (MTT2013) (pp. 163–175). Prague. http://meaningtext.net/mtt2013/proceedings_MTT13.pdf
Stein, G.
Vivès, R.
Wierzbicka, A.
Wotjak, G.
Žolkovskij, A., & Mel’čuk, I.
[ p. 274 ]