Abstract Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) have received widespread attention. Research on these constructions, however, has for the most part focused exclusively on their syntactic and lexical-semantic properties. Additionally, studies devoted to specific LVCs tend to neglect the phrasal-semantic and pragmatic variation brought about by the combination of a light verb with different nominal complements. This paper tries to fill those gaps by means of a quantitative and qualitative corpus-based study of Light give Constructions (LgiveCs). The quantitative analysis investigates frequencies of LgiveCs in British English and compares them across spoken and written (fiction) discourse, which reveals a high frequency of this construction in speech, especially in combinations of give with a ring, a kiss and an answer. When these combinations are excluded, LgiveCs are significantly more frequent in writing. In a complementary qualitative approach, we highlight the structural and discursive features of the construction and attempt to explore the factors that motivate the frequent use of the LgiveC in British English.

中文翻译：

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轻声动词

摘要轻动词构造（LVC）受到了广泛的关注。但是，对这些结构的研究主要集中在它们的句法和词汇语义特性上。此外，专门针对特定LVC的研究往往忽略了轻动词与不同名词补语的组合所带来的短语语义和语用变化。本文试图通过基于语料库的定量研究和定性研究来弥补这些空白。定量分析调查了英式英语中LgiveC的频率，并在口语和书面（小说）话语中对它们进行了比较，这揭示了这种语音构造的频率很高，尤其是在带有响声，亲吻和回答的组合中。如果排除了这些组合，LgiveC的书写频率明显更高。在一种互补的定性方法中，我们强调了结构的结构性和话语性，并尝试探索了促使LgiveC在英式英语中频繁使用的因素。