engleski

Periphrasis in the coding of events

The aim of the paper is to investigate the cognitive processes which trigger the use of specific periphrastic structures in English, where combinations of the so called 'light verbs' (do, give, have, make and take) and nouns participate in the coding of events. These structures will be compared to the full verb forms which are semantically very close to the above periphrastic structures, but it will be argued that the very coding of event shemata governs the choice of either linguistic units. This analytical tool of the English language will also be compared to the parallel structures in another Germanic language, the German 'Funktionsverbgefüge' and to the Croatian translation equivalents, where certain aspectual forces come into play and influence the final morphosyntactic constructs. Further issue will be raised of whether there are directions in which certain situations are construed in order for them to be linguistically presented by a periphrastic structure and whether full verb forms should be considered to be basic linguistic constructs which serve as a starting point for their supposed periphrastic counterparts. In this sense, special attention will be paid to the status of the nominal part of the structure, especially in reference to its conversional character (to laughVERB* to give/have a laughNOUN)

periphrastic structures; light verbs; cognitive processes

nije evidentirano