Post-Peer-review, pre-formated version of the article.

Page breaks here roughly

correspond to printed version of article that later appeared in: Corpus
interrogation and grammatical patterns. Eds. Davidse, K., C. Gentens, L.
Ghesquière, and L. Vandelanotte. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 15-34
Light verb constructions in the history of English
Patricia Ronan
Université de Lausanne

This study investigates light verb constructions in sample corpora from Old- Middle- and
Early Modern English. The use of one coherent definition of light verb constructions
throughout these periods allows direct comparison of the overall structures and of the light
verbs used. The comparison shows that frequencies are highest in the Middle English texts
and decrease in the Early Modern data. While the Old English counts are significantly
lower than Middle English ones, their frequencies are far from negligible. It is argued that
where previous assessments consider Old English light verb constructions to be rare or
non-existent, this is partly due to having used the perspective of the most frequent Modern
English light verbs rather than working from the perspective of which light verbs were
frequent at the period in question.

1 Introduction

In the present paper, attestations of light verb constructions are compared in sample
corpora from Old- to Early Modern English in order to assess changes in the light verbs
used. The study intends to offer a survey of historical developments in the frequencies of
light verb constructions and to offer a basis for further research based on more extensive
data sets. Light verb constructions are defined here as semantically largely non-
compositional collocations containing a predicate noun which is the syntactic object of a
semantically low-content inflected verb, such as to have a look or to take a decision.
Typically, but not invariably, these may be paraphrased by simple verbs which correspond
to the predicate noun, here to look or to decide. Other terminology used for these
constructions includes eventive object, support verb-, stretched verb-, multi verb-, thin
verb-, or verbo-nominal constructions.

1
 Concerning the historical development of these structures, it is well known that
they already existed in the earliest varieties of English, but the extent of their use is not yet
clear. Traugott considers them to be at the very beginning of grammaticalisation at a
‘phrasal stage’ (1999: 252), in which some fixed collocations exist. In the Middle English
period, then, Hiltunen sees them as expanding through French influence (Hiltunen 1983:
28). Previous corpus based studies (especially Brinton and Akimoto 1999) have traced
features of the development of light verb constructions throughout the history of English,
but the different contributors investigate only the most frequent verbs, and also they partly
select the possible predicate nouns according to differing principles. In the following we
will suggest a re-evaluation of the relative presence of light verb constructions in different
periods of the English language on the basis of an illustrative sample corpus. To this end,
we will first summarize previous research on definition and usage of light verb
constructions in Sections 1.1 and 1.2, and on light verbs in the history of English in Section
2. Then, after presenting data and methodology in Section 3, we will investigate and
compare attestations in our Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English data in
section 4 and discuss our findings in Section 5.1

1.1 Definition of light verb constructions

Both synchronic and diachronic comparison of light verbs in English are influenced by the
fact that the structures do not have a common definition adhered to by all researchers.
Consequently, different scholars have also investigated differing entities, which has made
particularly diachronic comparison of research results difficult. The most restrictive
approach to light verb constructions is to investigate only collocations with zero-derived
verbal nominalisations. Nickel (1968) has used this approach in investigating the predicate
nouns complementing the verbs give, have, make and take, Wierzbicka (1982) restricts
herself to predicates of have and take. A less restrictive approach is found in Quirk et al.
(1985: 750-2), Algeo (1995: 206) Claridge (2000), and Allerton (2002). These researchers
include structures that are “semantically an extension of the verb” (Quirk et al. 1985: 750)
such as to have an argument versus to argue. As Quirk et al. (1985: ibid.) point out, it is
the predicate noun that carries the major part of the meaning of the collocation.
Syntactically speaking, the predicate noun is the syntactic object of a semantically low-
content inflected verb. Typically, light verb constructions can be paraphrased by simple
verbs, for example to have a look by to look or to take a decision by to decide. Quirk et al.
(1985: 751) argue, however, that not all predicate nouns are extensions of simple verbs and

1 I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on this study.
All remaining shortcomings are of course my own.

2
cite to make an effort, which is not paralleled by *to effort or to do homework, for which
there is no corresponding *to homework. The verbs investigated by Quirk et al. are do, get,
give, have, make, offer, pay, put and take.
The broader definition of light verb construction used by Quirk et al. is taken as a
basis for the research also in this work for the reason that the collocations with action noun
predicates and non-action noun predicates are used in similar syntactic contexts. In contrast
to the studies by the aforementioned authors, also a broader spectrum of verbs is admitted
here. The selection criterion is that the entire collocation can be paraphrased by a
morphologically related or unrelated simple verb at its time of attestation, or will develop a
morphologically corresponding simplex at a later stage.
For these verbal groups, the term constructions has been used from early on. Since
the rise of Construction Grammar, this term may be less appropriate. The group verbs at
times have form-meaning pairs which are not predictable from their individual
components, that is they are semantically non-compositional, but for the moment it
remains unanswered to what extent they can be regarded as stored parings of form and
function. They are, however, constructions in the sense of denoting a position on a cline
between fully idiomatic and complete free co-occurrence, a definition of construction
which is used in Goldberg and Jackendorff (2004). According to this view, all related
grammatical phenomena, whether idiosyncratic form-meaning pairs or totally general,
should be considered together. This view is adopted in the current study.

1.2 Use of light verb constructions and their development

The use of light verb constructions is seen as determined by a number of syntactic and
pragmatic considerations. It has been pointed out that light verb constructions allow for
pragmatic reordering, which could not be achieved with simple verbs (e.g. Brinton 1996).

(1) a. We dined.
(1) b. We had dinner.

Sentence (1a) lacks an object noun and the verb dine is in the stress position of the
sentence. The light verb construction in sentence (1b), by contrast, provides an object noun
for a transitive verb and it also allows a noun to fill the final stress position. The fact that
the verbal group consists of two elements entails more syntactic flexibility that can be
exploited for pragmatic benefits. In addition, the verbal group can also be semantically
more specific. Especially aspectual specification can be marked in light verb constructions:

3
(2) a. We walked.
(2) b. We took a walk.

In example (2a), the action of walking is not temporally restricted, in (2b) the action is
temporarily bounded and is potentially repeatable (cf. Wierzbicka 1982: 757-8).
In addition to a view from syntactic and semantic perspectives, the use of light verb
constructions has also been discussed as a potential language contact or acquisition feature.
Here the use of light verb constructions has been thought to be favoured particularly in
language contact varieties or in children’s speech (Poussa 1990, Tieken 1990). In language
contact, the constructions have been argued to serve as vehicles for the incorporation of
new concepts from contact languages into a target language (Danchev 1992), and it has
been pointed out that this is particularly possible with the verb do (Hock & Joseph 1996).
Perhaps due to this association of do with contact varieties, light verb constructions with
do have also been identified as signs of colloquial speech, particularly so for Early Modern
English (Nurmi 1999).
On the other hand, the structures can also be viewed as not stylistically low, but as
symptoms of unduly complicated language, as in

(3) a. The council has decided to support the project.

b. The council has taken a decision to support the project.

Brinton (1996: 190) points out that they are often viewed as verbose, scientific or taken as
signs of ‘officialese’ or administrative communication. Thus, two different characteristics
of light verb constructions, colloquial and elevated style levels, have been argued for so
far.

2 Studies on the development of light verb constructions in the history English

Light verb constructions have been investigated in the different periods of English, but
typically from a synchronic perspective of the period in question rather than from a
diachronic perspective. This becomes particularly obvious in Brinton & Akimoto (1999)
mentioned above, which is a collection of essays investigating partly differing light verbs
in all periods of English language history. Akimoto & Brinton (1999) themselves provide a
pioneering study of the structures in Old English. They investigate the Old English
equivalents of the light verbs which are most frequent in contemporary English, namely
dōn, macian, sellan, giefan, niman and habban. Potential period-specific light verbs are not
identified. Ronan (2012a) is a corpus based study, drawn from a corpus of

4
about 109,000 words of Old English, which has been collected for cross-linguistic
comparison with a morphologically even more synthetic language, Old Irish. The study
suggests that morphological syntheticity is no restraining factor for the use of syntactically
analytic light verb constructions.
For the Middle English period, Denison (1981) is a comprehensive survey of
different kinds of group verbs in one text, the Ormulum, while Matsumoto (1999; 2008)
draws on a large corpus in which she identifies uses of the most frequent light verbs.
Ronan (2012b) investigates especially the use of foreign-derived predicate nouns in some
Chaucer materials. For the Early Modern period, Hiltunen (1999) investigates light verbs
in drama texts, Tanabe (1999) studies their use in the Paston Letters, while Kytö (1999)
examines collocational and idiomatic properties of the most frequent verbs in the
combinations. Claridge (2000) is a corpus-based study of different kinds of group verbs in
the roughly 1.2 million word Lampeter Corpus, which spans the period from 1640 to 1740
(Claridge 2000: 5). Claridge (2000: 5, 132) identifies 32 verbs which are used in 241 light
verb constructions, with make, take, give, have, put and do leading the table, followed by
be, set, lay, beg, call, stand, crave, run, see and bring with more than 10 tokens each
(2000: 122). These findings prove that looking beyond the most frequent verbs will
provide considerable numbers of light verb types and tokens.
Predictably, a number of studies of light verb constructions in Modern English
exists, but barring oversight, there are only few comprehensive corpus based studies.
Hoffmann (1972) is a corpus based study of light verbs in American drama from the
1950ies and 1960ies. Allerton (2002) examines light verbs in the 1 million word Lancaster-
Oslo-Bergin (LOB) corpus, collected in the early 1960ies, but the study is as yet restricted
to predicate nouns starting with the letter a. Algeo (1995) has likewise examined LOB, as
well as its American counterpart, the Brown corpus, for the five most frequent light verbs.
In LOB, Algeo found the following counts of light verbs:

Table 1. Light verb tokens in the LOB and Brown corpora (after Algeo 1995: 214)

Light verb tokens in 1 mil. tokens in 1 mil. Tokens per 2

word LOB word Brown million words
have 100 55 155
make 67 59 126
give 40 40 80
Take 38 38 79
do 0 4 4
total 199 245 444 (222/ 1 mil.)

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Against this background of studies carried out on contemporary and earlier varieties, let us
now move on to consider the developments in data which is sampled on one coherent
principle from the Old English to the Early Modern English period.

3 Data and Method

The data for the present study has been obtained by manual and semi-automatic searches of
ca. 50,000 words each of Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English texts
from mixed genres. For the Old English period, data has been collected from the Toronto
Dictionary Corpus in Electronic form (diPaulo Healy et al. 2004), and the data is a subset
of a ca. 108,800 word data set that contributed to an earlier study (Ronan 2012a). It
represents a genre mix of poetry, historical-religious narrative in translation from Latin,
original narrative and annalistic evidence (see table 2). The Middle English data mainly
stems from the Helsinki Corpus (Kytö 1996 [1991]) and has been supplemented by data
from the General Prologue and The Knights Tale from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (de
Castro, n.d.). In addition to the latter, original religious narrative has been used in the form
of data from The Book of Margery Kempe and short legal material from the Statutes of the
Realm. Data from the Early Modern Period has been taken from the Helsinki Corpus only.
The intention has been to collect in the corpus texts all instances of semantically low-
content verbs that are predicated by predicate noun objects, and in which the resulting
verbal group forms a single semantic unit. Thus, the predicate nouns are either action
nouns, or abstract nouns whose collocation with verbs could be paralleled by simple verbs,
e.g. make a story or do evil. The existence of a corresponding simplex at the period of
attestation is not considered a strict criterion, however, as simplexes may have come into
existence only later, such as in the case of a/to battle, or, conversely, they may have
existed in the past as in the case of to take wife, to which Old English wīfian corresponded,
but was lost later. Clearly, even if they are not at the time of attestation, light verb
constructions may at some point in time be paralleled by a simplex. If any doubt existed as
to whether a structure should be considered a light verb construction, inclusion has
generally been opted for. Overtly aspectual or causal verbs, such as onginnan/gan ‘begin,
start’, have however been excluded in this study. These sampling considerations have
continuously been followed in all periods under scrutiny.
Particularly in more literary genres from the Middle English period onwards, a
doubling of predicate nouns was repeatedly found. In order not to distort the counts of

6
light verb constructions, here only the predicate noun closer to the verb is used2, e.g.

(4) Ne yif us neither mercy ne refuge, … . (KnT 1720)

‘Give use neither mercy nor escape.’
(5) But swich a cry and swich a wo they make … . (KnT 900)
‘But they make such cry and such woe.’

In addition, cases were found where two verbs were used together with two
predicate nouns. In these cases one collocation each was counted, e.g. make corruption and
worke disinherison in the following example.

(6) Provided also, That no Attainder for this Offence made Felonie
by this Acte, shall make or worke any corruption of Blood Losse of Dower or disinherison
of Heire or Heires. (Statutes IV 519-20)

This methodology has been adopted to make the frequency counts of light verb
constructions comparable throughout the periods. As will be seen in Sections 4. and 5, the
frequencies of light verb constructions remain high for the Middle English period in spite
of the count being based on the attestation of verbs rather than predicate nouns.
After these methodological preliminaries, we will describe the structures in Old-,
Middle and Early Modern English.

4 Data from the history of English

4.1 Old English Data

The Old English data investigated for this study consists of approximately 45,000 words
(cf. Table 2). It predominantly stems from texts from the later Anglo-Saxon period, but the
composition date of one text, Beowulf, is still disputed (cf. Orchard 2003: 19-25).
In the Old English sample corpus investigated for this study, 93 light verb tokens
have been found. In the corpus data, the most frequent verbs do not correspond to
contemporary English attestations. Instead, the most frequent verbs were fremman, niman,
habban, wyrcan, and dōn and sellan. Particularly interesting is fremman ‘perform’, which
does appear in Bede, but is disproportionately frequent in Beowulf.

2 The author is aware that this can potentially result in incomplete attestation of the predicate
nouns in the corpus material. However, as the corpus texts are only a very small selection of
the extant material for each of the periods, complete attestation of all light verb constructions
within the period cannot be aimed for in the context of this study and it seemed most important
to focus on comparability of frequency counts.

7
 Table 2. Old English corpus texts

Text Words Genre Period Light verb

frequencies/
100,000
Anglo-Saxon 15 000 Chronicle 9th-10th 187
Chron A century
Beowulf 12 000 Poetry 9th – 10th 333
century
Ohthere and 2500 Travel 10th century 120
Wulfstan narrative
Bede I 16 500 Historical 10th-11th 133
(extract) narrative century
Old English 45000 207
total

(7) …swa deorlice dæd gefremede fagum sweordum

‘He performed a valuable deed with shining swords.’ (Beo [0162 (583)])
(8) .. ac ymb Hreosnabeorh eatolne inwitscear oft gefremedon.
‘But often committed dreadful malicious slaughter at Hreosnabeorh.’ (Beo [0681 (2472)])

Fremman seems to correspond to later dōn and macian collocations and denotes
active implementation of the action described by the predicate noun. Fremman is used in
15 different types, and particularly help and dæd ‘deed’ show notable token frequencies at
4 and 3 respectively. The predicate nouns may either have an equivalent verb or not,
though the latter is rarer in the sample. There are no examples of fremman in the samples
from Chronicle A or Ohthere and Wulfstan. This may indicate that fremman is used more
in poetic diction than in non-literary contexts. Semantically, fremman shares some space
with wyrcan ‘cause, work’, which is also used in the corpus material. While wyrcan might
express causation more than implementation in some examples, in others the parallels to
fremman are strong, e.g.

(9) & þær is mid Estum an mægð þæt hi magon cyle gewyrcan
‘The Estonians have the ability that they can create cold’ (Or1 [0148 (1.17.33)])

The parameters that govern this interaction need further research on the basis of a
larger corpus. From the sample texts it appears that in addition to semantic content and
individual stylistic preferences, alliteration between light verb and predicate nouns also
favours the use of light verbs constructions.
Next in frequency in the data sample is the light verb niman ‘to take’. This too is
found with some instances in Bede I, but shows highest token frequency in the Chronicle
A, where it particularly appears in apparently set expressions like sige niman ‘take victory’
and freod nimman ‘make peace’ (10 examples each). In contrast to fremman, the type
frequency for niman in the sample is low, but the tokens appear

8
repeatedly, which will be at least partly due to the subject matter of the Chronicles, which
are of course much concerned with the topics of victory and peace.

(10) & þy ilcan geare gefeaht Ecgbryht cyning & Beornwulf cyning on Ellendune, &
Ecgbryht sige nam
‘That same year king Ecgbryht and king Beornwulf fought at Ellendune and Ecgbryht took
victory.’ (ChronA [029810 (823.2)])

In spite of its high attestation numbers in these cases, niman may not be entirely
grammaticalized in the contexts, as alternative structures exist with habban, as in (11)
below. By and large, the collocations with niman indicate or emphasize that the agent
benefits from the predicate noun.
Habban ‘have’ is a further high-frequency light verb in the sample corpus.
Akimoto and Brinton (1999: 50) point out that one of the effects of using this light verb
with predicate nouns is that using an otherwise obligatory object of an action noun may be
avoided, as in cyððe habban ‘to have knowledge’ as opposed to X cyðan ‘make X known’.
They further stress that in the nominal construction, the predicate noun may be modified
by an adjective, and that this is not possible with the simple verb. The collocation of
habban and predicate noun typically expresses a state or a result state as illustrated by

(11) hi sona wið heora feondum gefuhtan, & sige hæfdan

‘they soon fought with their enemies and had victory.’
(B1 0134 (9.44.28)].

This example illustrates the resultant state of peace. The example is also interesting
because sige ‘victory’ has no corresponding simple verb. That this is not of paramount
importance for the use of the light verb construction, however, is shown by the fact that its
synonym sib, which is paralleled by the simplex sibbian ‘to make peace’, is also used in
light verb constructions with habban. A survey of the instances of light verb constructions
in the Old English sample corpus is given in Table 3 below.
Overall, in the sample texts, the frequency of the light verb constructions was
highest in the poetic text of Beowulf with 40 tokens corresponding to a frequency of 333
per 100,000 words. This is followed by the historical Chronicle A, whose 28 tokens
correspond to a frequency of 187 per 100,000 words. There is a clear drop in the narrative
genres with a frequency of 133 in Bede I (22 tokens) and Ohthere and Wulfstan at a
frequency of 120, albeit on the basis of only few tokens (3 tokens). This suggests that
genre of the text, stylistically elevated or aiming for exactness of expression, is a more
important incentive for the use of the construction in Old English than is the question of
whether the text is translated from Latin or not. An overview of the attestations of light
verb constructions in the corpus are provided in Table 3.

9
 Table 3. Frequencies of light verb constructions in the Old English sample

Verb Types Tokens Frequency per

100,000
Fremman 15 23 51
Niman 4 22 49
Habban 15 18 40
Wyrcan 8 9 20
Don 7 7 16
Sellan 7 7 16
Limpan 2 3 7
Beran 1 2 4
Dælan 1 1 2
Giefan 1 1 2
Total counts 61 93 207

4.2 Middle English Data

The Middle English data set for this study consists of approximately 51,000 words taken
from different genres. The source texts from the Helsinki Corpus are The Book of Margery
Kempe, and the roughly contemporary legal materials from the Statutes of the Realm II
from the Helsinki Corpus (Kytö, 1996 [1991]). Two examples of Chaucer’s late 14th
century Canterbury Tales, The Prologue and the Knight’s Tale are taken from the
eChaucer corpus (Ne Castro, 2007). Texts and data are tabulated in Table 4.
In the Middle English sample texts, the line-up of light verbs has changed
considerably from the Old English sample. The most frequently used light verbs are have
(114), make (61), do (45), take (26), and give (18). Further examples are found with get,
go, grant, hold, bring, perform, say, work, arrange, bear, commit, exercise, find, hold,
pursue, purvey and put.
Compared to the Old English data, both the raw number of tokens, as well as the number
of different types of predicate nouns used with the light verbs of higher frequency has
increased. Particularly make, take and give have gained ground,

Table 4. Middle English corpus texts

Text Words Genre Period Light verb

frequencies/
100,000
Chaucer 8422+ 21872 Poetry -1380-1400 494
Kempe 9670 Narrative 1436 672
Statutes II 11 271 Legal 1420-1500 790
MidE total 51235 595

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while have and do remain well represented. The most frequent collocation in the samples is
have power, of which multiple examples are found in each text, e.g.

(12) þat þei schal no powyr haue ouyr þe neyþyr in body ne in sowle; ‘That they shall not
have power over you neither in body nor in soul.’ (Kempe 151-2)
(13) that all such Commyssioners shuld have full power to make ordeigne and execute
Statutes. ‘That all such commissioners should have full power to make, ordain and execute
Statutes.’ (Statutes II, 25-7)

Have collocations are notably better attested than other verbs in the simple
narrative style of The Book of Margery Kempe.
Light verb constructions with do are not very well represented in Kempe nor in the
Statutes, but they are found with higher frequency (106/100,000 words) in the Chaucer
texts. With the do collocations, predicate nouns which have either a French or a Latin
heritage are frequent (cf. Ronan 2012b). Kempe uses 2 of 4 foreign derived nouns with do,
do diligence and do message, but also the English derived do business and do evil. In the
Statutes II, 5 of 9 predicate nouns are foreign derived. Foreign derived predicate nouns are,
however, disproportionally frequent in the Chaucer data (26 of 32 predicate nouns), e.g.

(14) And seith " Arys, and do thyn observaunce."

‘And says “Arise and do your observance”.’ (KnT 1045)

Particularly in rhymed texts, such as the Canterbury Tales, the question of course
arises whether the use of light verb constructions must be considered due to a desire to
create rhyme. This may hold in some cases, such as do thyn observaunce, which is
followed by

(15) This maked Emelye have remembraunce To doon honour to May, and for to ryse.
‘This caused Emily do remember to do honour to May, and to rise.’ (KnT 1046-7)

In the consecutive eamples (14) and (15), observance and remembraunce with their
rhyming French suffix may well have been chosen for rhyming purposes, but the example
in the following line, doon honour is clearly not driven by this consideration. But here, too,
the effect of the light verb construction to increase syllable count as compared to the
simplex may have been an incentive (cf. Ronan 2012b). Stylistic considerations may also
play a role in legal texts such as the Statutes, which display a strong tendency to consider
every angle of a problem (e.g. Stat II, 406-7 below), but in the narrative of Kempe
typically few overt stylistic explanations of this sort apply.

11
(16) By which Co[m]myssions, and auctoritie yeven to the seid Co[m]myssioners in the
seid fourme, meny greate hurtes and inconvenyences in dyv[er]s p[ar]ties of this yor
realme doon and had by encresse of Water were necessarily redressed refourmed and
amended…
‘Many great hurts and inconveniences done and had in diverse parts of your realm by
increase of water were necessarily redressed, reformed and amended by the commissioners
and the authority given to the said commissioners in the said form.’ (Statutes II 68-72)
(17) & so sche dede hir massage as sche was comawndyd.
‘And so she did her errand as she was commanded.’ (Kempe 218-19)

While in some cases stylistic considerations like rhyme, rhythm or other pragmatic
considerations may cause the use of the light verb, in this last example no clear alternative
involving a simple equivalent to do a message seems to exist.
The new light verbs in this period, make and take ostensibly replace fremman and
niman, and give replaces sellan, which had become more restricted in meaning after the
OE period. Though it has a more recent history as a light verb than do, make has overtaken
it in the sample texts from the Middle English period, where it is already well represented
with 38 tokens, though this might look different in a larger corpus. Statutes II particularly
use it in the context make feoffment ‘grant a fief’, for which the simplex feoffen also
existed (OED, sv feoff). Otherwise, make mention is well attested, and make act and make
list are also found repeatedly.

(18) þe creatur of whom þis tretys makyth mencyon ‘The creature of whom this treatise
makes mention.’ (Kempe 456-7)

There are also further examples with rarer verbs which continue to be medium frequent or
rare support verbs in contemporary English, such as grant or put (in) (Allerton, 2002, pp.
186, 190), and an example of commit is in evidence:

(19) … where the Attourney named in the seid Warrant put the seid Article in execucion
‘where the attorney named in the said warrant put the said article in execution’ (Statues II
628-9)
(20) all man~ of accions […] to graunt to ev~y of such p~sones p~teccion […] ‘all
manner of actions to grant protection to all such persons’ (Statutes II, 292-4)
(21) Forasmuche as Thomas Crofte commytted a detestable murdre within the Marches
of Wales ‘Forasmuch as Thomas Crofte committed a detestable murder within the Marches
of Wales’ (Statutes II, 829)

12
 The distributions of light verbs in the Middle English samples are shown in Table
5.

Table 5. Light verbs in the Middle English sample

Verb Types Tokens Token f/100,000

Have 75 114 223
Make 38 61 119
Do 32 45 88
Take 18 26 50
Give 14 18 35
Others 25 41 61
Total counts 232 305 595

Table 5 shows that the frequency of light verb constructions has risen to 595
examples per 100,000 words in the sample corpus, as compared to 207 examples per
100,000 words in the Old English sample texts. While the increase of almost 200% is
indeed very notable, it is not so exorbitant that we could argue that the structure is only
emerging in the Old English period. But the higher type frequencies in Middle English
indicate that the semantic spread of the constructions seems to be increasing.

4.3 Early Modern English Data

The Early Modern data sample totals about 53,000 words, all taken from the Helsinki
Corpus . A genre mix has again been attempted. The eight textual extracts also contain
legal material from the Statutes of the Realm IV, rhyming drama as well as non-rhyming
drama, historical writing, travelogue and a sermon as indicated in Table 6.
In the Early Modern material, have and make retain their positions as most frequent
light verbs. They are joined by give, do, commit and take as more frequently used verbs,
and further examples are found with exercise (5), put (5), hold (4), use (4), fight (3), levy
(3), practice (3), receive (3) and work (3). Execute, get, grant, keep, minister and perform
have 2 attestations each, bring, break, come, draw, gain, lead, obtain, offer, perpetrate,
serve, set, stand, undertake and yield have one attestation each in the corpus.
The data in Table 7 shows that in comparison with the Middle English sample, the
frequencies of light verb constructions are lower in the Early Modern sample texts. The
data displays a large diversification in light verbs. At the same time, the five most
prominent light verbs are already those generally observed in Modern English. Commit has
an equally high token frequency as take. This however, may be document specific

13
 Table 6. Early Modern English corpus texts

Text Words Genre Period Light verb

frequencies/
100,000
Statutes IV 11 795 Legal 1588-1604 678
Merry Wives of 6245 Comedy - 1597-1623 464
Windsor - Shakespeare rhyming
A chaste maid in 5708 Comedy – non- 1630 210
Cheapside, Middleton rhyming
History of Britain 6002 History 1670 450
Milton
On the folly of scoffing 6702 Sermon 1671 433
at religion Tillotsen
New account of East 5438 Travelouge 1698 221
India and Persia Fryer
Reign of Charles II 5280 History 1703 704
Burnet
Beaux Strategem 5704 Drama 1707 245
Farquhar
Total EModE 52874 463

Table 7. Light verbs in the Early Modern sample

Verb Types Tokens Token f/ 100.000

Have 42 58 110
Make 39 52 98
Give 25 25 47
Do 18 20 39
Take 11 16 30
Commit 3 16 30
Exercise 4 5 9
Put 3 5 9
Hold 4 4 8
Use 4 4 8
Others 37 41 78
Total counts 186 245 463

as the high counts are mainly based on the high type frequencies of commit offence in the
Statutes IV (13 tokens).
In the restricted sample corpus, only a small number of light verb types are found
repeatedly, and repetition is predictably most prominent in light verbs of high

14
frequency. Do and give largely have single attestations with their predicate nouns
(excepting do evil, felony and evil at 2 tokens each). The light verbs have, make and take,
on the other hand, show a higher number of multiple attestations. This holds for have
power, have regard, have authority, have faculty, and for have charme, confidence, means,
need and opportunity. Make is found with multiple instances of use, discovery, statute,
claim, peace, proof, provision and rates. Take is found in the collocations take heed, leave,
care and distress. The latter is used in the sense of ‘detention’ in the Statutes, and is
paralleled by a simple verb from 1490 on (OED sv distress n II). The following samples
illustrate the Early Modern English usage in the data sample:

(22) He had a faculty of speaking indefatigably upon every subject (Burnet, Reign 228-9)
(23) … of whose Treason, the King having now made use as much as serv’d his turn
(Milton, 425-7)
(24) … and the surplusage or remainder over and above to be delivered to the partie of
whome the distresse was taken (Statutes IV 450-1)

The question has previously been raised, whether the presence of a definite article
in the context of a predicate noun of a light verb means that the collocation cannot be
considered a light verb construction. Particularly for earlier stages of the English language,
this is contradicted by researchers who point out that the article system was less fixed at
earlier stages of English (e.g. Matsomoto 2008: 84 for Middle English). Wierzbicka (1982:
758) finds the presence of an indefinite article to be most typical in Present Day English,
and she identifies it as semantically singularizing and delimiting. If we are prepared to
admit indefinite articles in collocations like to take a decision or to have a think, some
situations may also call for the use of the definite article, especially where previously
mentioned light verb constructions are referred to, e.g. have you taken the decision we are
waiting for? These two factors, less fixed state of articles especially in pre-Early Modern
English, and contextual anchoring of definiteness, suggest that light verb constructions
with definite articles should not be dismissed.
In the corpus material from this period it is noteworthy that as indicated above there
is considerable variety in the light verbs used, such as

(25) And if any Weaver shall use any Deceipte in mynglinge his Yearne (Statutes IV
348)
(26) when I absolutely renounce their Authority, I do yield a most perfect submission and
obedience to it (Tillotson, 444-5)
(27) Therefore when we undertake this Journy (Fryer, 347-8)

15
 This large variety of different light verbs may in part be influenced by the presence
of large groups of morphologically differing eventive nouns that have become available at
the beginning of the Early Modern period. On the other hand, the fact that denominal verbs
could also be formed to a larger extent may have meant that it was often not necessary to
use a light verb construction anymore because a simplex had become available. This latter
possibility may cause frequency decreases in light verb constructions in the Early Modern
English period.
Overall, in the corpus material especially high frequencies are found in the
examples of legal language, a mid-position is taken by rhyming drama, historical and
religious writing, the lowest frequencies are presented in the more casual speech genres of
non-rhyming drama and travelogue. Burnet’s Reign of Charles II seems an unexpected
outlier (704 examples per 100,000 words). Even the Statutes IV, earlier than Burnet, have
fewer examples (678 per 100,000)3. It is noteworthy that the average frequency is lower in
the Early Modern English data compared to the Middle English data, even in examples of
identical genres such as statutes.

5 Discussion

The corpus material indicates that attestations of light verb constructions rose over time.
The rise of frequency was not steady, however. We can observe an increase of light verb
constructions, both in terms of frequencies and attested structures in the Middle English
data as compared to the Old English data. This rise in frequency from Old to Middle
English is not exorbitant: the constructions are about two times more frequent in the
Middle English data than in the Old English data. The differences in frequencies of support
verb constructions between Old-, Middle- and Early Modern English corpus texts is
statistically highly significant at a significance level of p < 0.0001%.
This rise is clear, but it does not seem a sufficient basis for claiming that the
constructions were badly attested in Old English. The overall distribution of light verb
constructions in the corpus material is plotted in Graph 1.
The graph illustrates a rise from Old English to Middle English, which is followed
by a fall in the Early Modern English corpus data. For the rise in Middle English
frequencies, a number of possible reasons may be found. One important reason for using
light verb constructions is to augment the lexicon. Augmentation may prove necessary or
desirable because a simple expression did not exist at the time,

3 The difference between Burnet’s Reign of Charles II and the other EModE texts is
statistically significant at a significance level of 0.04% according to the chi-square test.

16
Graph 1. Frequencies of light verb constructions per 100,000 words in the corpus texts

for example where technical innovations are concerned, or where concepts are loaned from
other languages. Particularly in cases of loaned verbs from other languages, these often are
loaned as agent nouns first, and used with a light verb, particularly do, before they are fully
integrated into the language as inflected verbs. This is due to the fact that nouns are more
easily borrowed from other languages than verbs (cf. Matras 2008: 172). An example of
this is I, that wende and hadde a great opinioun… ‘I supposed and had a great notion’
(Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, 1268). Opinion is a loan from French or late Latin, the verb
opinion also comes to be used in English, but only after Chaucer’s time (cf. Ronan 2012b).
In this respect, light verb construction may be seen as a language contact phenomenon, and
it has been argued that they are frequently found in contexts of second language acquisition
(Poussa 1990; Rissanen 1991: 333-35; Danchev 1992: 30). As language contact was very
strong particularly in the Middle English period, high frequencies of light verb
constructions would not have been unexpected at this time.
In addition to language contact phenomena playing a role, it has been suggested
that the decrease in morphological affixation may have favoured the use of analytic
structures and thus of light verb constructions (Hiltunen 1983). Since growing
analyticisation was particularly observable in the Middle English period, this would also
favour the use of light verb constructions in Middle English. In this context, the increasing
fixation of the word order of English may also have favoured analytic expressions that
allow syntactic and pragmatic modification of the sentence structure.
A further point that has not been examined in this study, but that would offer
interesting insights into the use of light verb constructions, is the question of how the
spread of literacy during the Middle and particularly Early Modern periods may have

17
influenced the use of light verb constructions. That the sociolinguistic context may have
played a role is possible, given that Nurmi (1999) identified particularly do periphrasis as a
feature that is prominent in the language of speakers of lower social classes. There is some
suggestion that education may have an influence in the fact that the data from The Book of
Margery Kempe, who was herself illiterate and uneducated and had a local clergyman
write for her, shows a high frequency of light verb constructions, particularly with the light
verb have.
It is also interesting to note that the data from the Early Modern texts in the corpus
do not indicate a further rise in the frequencies of light verb constructions after the Middle
English period, except for the outlier of Burnet’s Reign of King Charles. On the one hand,
this may be due to data selection and only a considerably larger data sample from each
period of English can prove the frequency changes. On the other hand, Danchev (1992) has
argued that during English language history, periods of decreased language contact have
always resulted in a more synthetic language structure. For the Early Modern English
period it can probably be argued that there was comparatively less language contact than
during the Middle English period, which could have meant an increasing syntheticity of the
verbal paradigm not only in terms of Latinate prefixes, but also in terms of a reduced
incentive to use light verb construction.

6 Conclusion

This investigation of light verb constructions shows differences from previous corpus-
based surveys which predominantly investigated the distribution of high-frequency light
verb constructions, which were partly selected on the basis of frequencies of light verbs in
Present Day English.
When using identical selection criteria for light verb constructions, we find that the
frequencies of attestations rise considerably in the later Middle English period as compared
to Old English. The overall frequencies in the Middle English data are in fact the highest in
the corpus material, after the late Middle English period, a slight drop in frequencies is
observable in the Early Modern English corpus texts. In contrast to earlier studies the
corpus material suggests, however, that the frequencies of light verb constructions in Old
English are not insignificant or negligible as the frequencies amount to more than 1/3 of
the high Middle English frequencies, or in other words, the Middle English frequencies are
almost 200% higher than the frequencies of the Old English corpus data. The
misapprehension that there were hardly any light verb constructions in Old English at least
partly seems to arise from the practice of investigating predominantly those light verbs
which are still frequent in Present Day English. The most frequent Present Day English
light verbs are already well represented

18
in the Middle English corpus data, but in Old English there is only a partial overlap with
Present Day English verbs, which means that a large percentage of Old English structures
is overlooked in that approach. The present study has also asked the question of why the
numbers of attestation may be the highest in Middle English corpus data and it is suggested
that language contact may have played an important role in the increase in frequency.
However, this assumption, as well as the observed frequencies, should be tested on
considerably larger corpora comprising more varied corpus texts and genres.

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