Brian Nolan: The patterns of occurrence of Irish light verb constructions:

Light verbs are attested in many of the world’s languages (Butt 1995, Butt 2003, Alsina et al. 2001). Cross linguistically, there appears to be a common class of verbs involved in these constructions and generally there is agreement that light verbs contribute to the formation of complex predicates. Light verbs, too, have a non-light or ‘heavy’ verb counterpart. 

In this talk we discuss the patterns of occurrence of light verb constructions (LVC) as found in modern Irish. We claim that the light verb (LV) encodes the event process initiation (or cause) and the matrix verb indicates the bounded component or result. In light verb constructions, the matrix verb appears in syntax as a verbal-noun form. The function of light verbs in these constructions is to modulate the event and sub-event semantics and the different light verbs do this in different ways. We distinguish between auxiliary verbs constructions (AVC) and those constructions involving light verbs (Anderson 2006, Aikhenvald and Dixon 2007).

We provide evidence based on Irish data that shows how aspect and argument structure considerations are resolved for the complex predicate within the light verb construction via the linking system between semantics and syntax. In this talk we motivate a functional account that appeals to the analysis of complex predicates found within Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, Van Valin 2005), for the layered structure of the clause.