| Type | construction |
|---|---|
| http://example.org/cx/hasExample | Frances Patterson underwent an operation at RMH today |
| Definition | an eventive complex predicate in which one of the elements, the support verb, has undergone semantic change -- specifically, semantic generalization -- such that it makes a minimal semantic contribution to the meaning of the whole complex predicate. This element no longer denotes a separate subevent of the whole event, unlike in basic eventive complex predicates. The verb forms in a support verb construction are also in a relatively idiosyncratic semantic relationship. Example: in English Frances Patterson underwent an operation at RMH today, underwent an operation is an instance of a support verb construction. The element other than the support verb is often in an action nominal or other form that is unlike the form of a simple (predicated) verb. (Section 13.5) |
| altLabel | coverb construction |
| altLabel | light verb construction |
| See section (in Croft 2022) | 13.5 |
| Subtype of | complex predicate |
The Model of Comparative concepts for Constructicon Alignment (MoCCA; Lorenzi et al. 2024) proposes to connect constructions across and within languages using Comparative Concepts as a shared base of comparison. It adopts the set of Comparative Concepts provided by Croft (2022).
Croft, William. 2022. Morphosyntax: Constructions of the World’s Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/morphosyntax/1AAB4F5F9C553F675170DCA3F03F82E2#contents. (14 October, 2025).
Lorenzi, Arthur, Peter Ljunglöf, Ben Lyngfelt, Tiago Timponi Torrent, William Croft, Alexander Ziem, Nina Böbel, Linnéa Bäckström, Peter Uhrig & Ely E Matos. 2024. MoCCA: A Model of Comparative Concepts for Aligning Constructicons. In Proceedings of the 20th Joint ACL - ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation @ LREC-COLING 2024, 93–98. Torino, Italia: ELRA and ICCL. https://aclanthology.org/2024.isa-1.12/. (22 July, 2025).
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