THE SCHEMATISATION PROCESS OF ENGLISH LIGHT VERBS

Abstract: The paper presents a corpus-cognitive study of basic elements in the schematisation process of the so called light verbs in the analytic verbo-nominal constructions in the contemporary English language. The historical overview offers a diachronic motivation for the initial schematisation processes of the verbs have, give, take and make and reveals an early recognition of their productive potential based on the simultaneous processes of (super)schematisation and metaphoric elaboration. Network models (cf. Langacker 1991) of the verbs are presented in order to elaborate on the complex interface facilitating a constructional schema which is at the same time highly productive and very frequent in the corpus of the English language.