Complementation of Light Verb Constructions in World Englishes : A Corpus-based Study

Light verb constructions (LVCs) have been studied not only in native Englishes, but also in a number of non-native varieties. The present research focuses on the constructions with the light verbs have, get, give, make, and do combined with the deverbal noun laugh. The study aims at giving a descriptive analysis of the structures in question in twenty English varieties on the basis of corpus data. All the data for analysis are collected from the GloWbE corpus. Constructions have/get/give a laugh are investigated in terms of frequency and complementation patterns.


Introduction
Light verb constructions (LVCs) (e.g., have a walk, get a bath, give a kiss) are usually described as constructions that consist of a verbal and nominal component where the meaning of the construction is derived from the noun whereas the meaning of the verb is bleached (Kearns, 2002, 1;Tu, Roth, 2011;Vincze, 2012, 238).However, despite its weakened meaning, the light verb contributes to the semantics of the construction in a few ways.It not only adds some aspectuality and puts constraints on which light verbs can occur with which complements, but also determines the assignment of thematic roles and can change the semantic valency of the construction (Wierzbicka, 1982, 791;Butt, ISSN 1392-8600 E-ISSN 1822-7805 Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2016, t. 18, Nr. 3 2010, 65-66; Bergs, 2005, 215;Seiss, 2009, 509).In addition, the light verb contributes to the predication of light verb constructions in that it licenses the predication of a non-verbal element (Butt, 2010, 48-49, 54; Höche, 2009, 237).
Light verb constructions with the light verbs have, take, give are among most frequently analysed structures in both native and non-native English varieties (Leech et al., 2009; Mukherjee, 2010; Hoffman et al., 2011; Höche, Shahrokny-Prehn, 2013; Bernaisch, 2015).The interest in the study of the light verbs make and do is increasing as well (Algeo, 1995;Stevenson et al., 2004;Smith, 2009;Tu, Roth, 2011;Laporte, 2012;Plante, 2014).Light verbs have, take, get, give, make, and do are described as having the most general meaning and can be found in most varieties of English (Quirk et al., 1985, 750;Stevenson et al., 2004;Ronan, Schneider, 2015, 4)  The present investigation analyses the complementation of light verb constructions in different English varieties.Discussions on complementation of LVCs have so far centered around the question whether elements following the deverbal noun are complements of the noun itself or of the light verb 1 .This study attempts to demonstrate how complementation of LVCs differs across twenty English varieties.The English varieties chosen for investigation are as follows: American English (AmE), Canadian English (CaE), British English (BrE), Irish English (IE), Australian English (AuE), New Zealand English (NZE), Indian English (IndE), Sri Lankan English (SLE), Pakistani English (PKE), Bangladeshi English (BDE), Singaporean English (SGE), Malaysian English (MYE), Philippine English (PHE), Hong Kong English (HKE), South African English (SAE), Nigerian English (NGE), Ghanaian English (GHE), Kenyan English (KE), Tanzanian English (TZE), and Jamaican English (JME).Due to the limited size of the article, only the deverbal noun laugh 2 is chosen for analysis.In combination with the light verb have it is semantically described as "a joint speech activity which could cause people involved to feel pleasure" (Wierzbicka, 1982, 786).Constructions with the deverbal noun laugh belong to a group of the so-called true light verb constructions since they have the same form as the corresponding verb, they cannot be passivized and pronominalized neither do they allow wh-extraction (Kearns, 2002, 2-3;Plante, 2014, 82).The research focuses on the use of the deverbal noun laugh with the light verbs have, get, and give 3 which are found in all English varieties under investigation.LVCs with two more light verbs that have general meaning, namely make and do, are briefly discussed as well.
The aim of the research is to present a descriptive analysis of constructions with the light verbs have, get, give, make, and do followed by the deverbal noun laugh in different English varieties on the basis of corpus data.For this purpose, the light verb constructions will be analysed in terms of frequency and complementation patterns.
1 There is no consensus among scholars on the problem: some support the view that it is the light verb that is responsible for the argument structure of the LVC (Wittenberg et al., 2014, 4;Bruening, 2015, 5-6), whereas others claim that complementation of the light verb construction generally depends on the deverbal noun (Huddleston, Pullum, 2010, 292-293). 2Some scholars describe the complement of the verb in LVCs as a verbal stem (Wierzbicka, 1982, 756;Kearns, 2002, 13). 3 There are some semantic differences between the light verbs; however, their description is out of scope of the present study.For the discussion on semantic differences of the light verbs under investigation refer to Wierzbicka (1982), Brugman (2001), Dixon (2005), Höche (2009), Plante (2014).

Related Work
There has been an increased interest among scholars in light verb constructions with high frequency light verbs have, take, give, make and do in different English varieties.The majority of corpus-based researches on LVCs focus on the frequency analysis.Frequency is usually studied from two perspectives: the overall tendencies in the use of LVCs and the use of LVCs with different light verbs.The investigation of British and American English varieties shows that light verb constructions are more characteristic of British than American English (Leech et al., 2009, 180).However, when British English is compared to non-native English varieties such as Indian and Sri Lankan Englishes, the tendencies are different: LVCs in Indian English are more frequent than in Sri Lankan and British English which demonstrate similarity (Bernaisch, 2015, 177).
Frequency studies related to light verbs show that the number of LVCs depends on the English variety it is found in and on the light verbs it is compared to.The research on Australian, New Zealand, and British varieties shows that the light verb have is dominant in these Englishes in comparison to the light verbs make, give, and take (Smith, 2009, 146, 153).Have is also more frequent in British English when it is compared to American English where preference is given to the light verb take (Leech et al., 2009, 180).The light verb have together with take and give demonstrates greater popularity in British English than in Irish (Ronan, Schneider, 2015, 34).Have and give are also more frequent in British and Sri Lankan English in comparison to Indian English where take is more often used (Bernaisch, 2015, 177).Make has the highest frequency in Kenyan English when compared to Jamaican, Indian, and Singaporean Englishes (Laporte, 2012).It is also the second most frequent light verb after have in Australian, New Zealand, and British Englishes with the light verb give being slightly less frequently used and take the least used light verb in these varieties (Smith, 2009, 146, 154).The light verb do, which has been studied in British and American Englishes, shows very low frequency in American and is not found as a light verb in British English (as cited in Ronan, Schneider, 2015, 5).The analyses on frequency of light verbs show that have is a dominant light verb in most English varieties with make and give being a little less frequently used (British, Australian, New Zealand, Sri Lankan Englishes), while a few tend to most often use the light verb take (American and Indian Englishes).
One more often investigated aspect of light verb constructions is complementation of the light verb.The aspect is most widely studied in non-native English varieties, namely South Asian Englishes, which tend to have regional variations that interest linguists.Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi Englishes, when compared to British English, have general extensions of light verbs which lead to formation of new collocation patterns.For instance, the globally used variant give/make a call in Sri Lankan and Indian Englishes is replaced by take a call, or the commonly used construction have/ take a look is changed by give a look in Indian English (Mukherjee, 2010, 235;Hoffman ISSN 1392-8600 E-ISSN 1822-7805 Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2016, t. 18, Nr. 3 et al., 2011, 275;Bernaisch, 2015, 174).Some deviant forms of LVCs are related to the use of articles.There is a tendency to use the definite article or omit the indefinite article in light verb constructions in Asian English varieties.For example, the LVCs with the definite article take the taste, take the dip are characteristic of Indian English, whereas the LVCs with the zero article take benefi t from, take lease are found in Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan varieties (Mukherjee, 2010, 235;Hoffman et al., 2011, 275-276;Bernaisch, 2015, 174).
The present research differs from the previous ones in that it analyses complementation of light verb constructions and is carried out on the basis of twenty English varieties.It presents a case study where the same deverbal noun is studied in combination with different light verbs.

Data and Methodology
The data for the analysis have been collected from the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) Corpus (http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe), which is a 1.9 billion word electronic database of web-based English from 20 different countries.The corpus includes informal blogs, newspapers, magazines, company websites, and other web-based materials.However, the 20 countries are differently represented in the corpus: the biggest difference being between native English varieties where American and British English are represented by 386,809,355 and 387,615,074 words,respectively,208,169 words,765,381 words, Irish -by 101,029,231 words, New Zealand English -by 81,390,476 words, whereas non-native varieties are represented more equally with the number of words ranging from slightly more than 51 million words for Pakistani English to more than 35 million for Tanzanian English with the exception of Indian English which is represented by 96,430,888 words.
In the data selection, the deverbal noun under investigation was first of all tagged with all verbs (a laugh [v*]).Only the verbs that have general meaning, i.e. have, get, give, make, and do were chosen for further selection where the deverbal noun was tagged with a lemmatized form of each verb separately (laugh [have] / [get] / give] / make] / [do]) with the span of four words to the left to retrieve also the cases where the deverbal noun is modified.Next, the concordances were further studied and light verb constructions were manually picked out.The selection was based on three criteria: idiomaticity, modification, and determination.The highly idiomatic construction "have/get the last/fi nal laugh" was excluded from the research as were excluded the cases where the modified deverbal noun laugh refers to a quality, not an action: e.g.<…> while women attract men through being charming, pretty and having a cute laugh, guys attract women through humor (BrE); He has an infectious laugh, unshakeable self confi dence, and strong self esteem (AmE); He had such a grating laugh (IE).The study includes cases when the deverbal noun is used not only with the indefinite article, which is one of characteristic features of LVCs, but also when it is found with the definite and zero articles, which are a distinct feature of some English varieties.
The data collected are further grouped, described, and compared to come up with similarities and discrepancies in the use of light verb constructions with the deverbal noun laugh in different English varieties.V. Differentiation: this last phase corresponds to internal diversification of the variety, that is, to the emergence of dialects and local variants.
The stages of evolution of some varieties in question have been described by Schneider (2003, 258, 260, 263, 266; as cited in Laporte, 2012) (see Figure 1).
The cline of evolution of English varieties in Schneider's model (Laporte, 2012) As seen from Figure 1, non-native varieties of English have progressed into different phases of evolution.Differences in evolutionary development of Asian Englishes is especially evident: Honk Kong English has advanced into phase 3 with some traces of phase 2, Malaysian and Philippine Englishes have reached phase 3, Indian English is found in phase4 with some features of phase 3, whereas Singaporean English is the most advanced among Asian Englishes since it has reached phase 5 with some characteristics of phase4.Native English varieties are in phase 5, i.e. in the final stage of their development.Depending on the evolutionary stage of the variety, different linguistic developments take place.Navitization of verb complementation starts in phase 3 with national identity features added in phases 4 and 5 (Schneider, 2003, 249, 250, 253, 255).

A Case Study: V + a LAUGH
In this case study the deverbal noun laugh is analysed in combination with high frequency light verbs have, get, give, make, and do in terms of frequency and complementation patterns in twenty English varieties.

Frequency Analysis
The frequency analysis is performed from several perspectives.It provides the data on what light verbs the deverbal noun laugh combines with in different English varieties and on complementation of LVCs with different light verbs.The frequency of the former refers to the number of LVCs with different light verbs as compared to the number of occurrences when the deverbal noun laugh is tagged with lemmatized form of light verbs with the span of four words to the left.Complementation frequency is counted comparing the total number of LVCs to the number of LVCs that take a complement.In both cases relative frequency is taken into account for the reason that different English varieties are unequally represented in the GloWbE Corpus.Table 1 demonstrates that in all twenty English varieties the deverbal noun laugh combines with three light verbs: have, get, and give.The nominal complement laugh can also combine with the light verbs make and do; however, the light verb constructions with these verbs are used only in 9 varieties out of 20.LVCs with both make and do are found in all native English varieties except for New Zealand and Canadian Englishes and in Singaporean English, which is the most advanced of non-native varieties.In New Zealand English LVCs with both make and do are absent, whereas Canadian English has LVC only with the light verb do.LVCs with make or do are characteristic of three more Asian varieties (Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Philippine Englishes), three African varieties (Ghanaian, Kenyan, and South African Englishes) and one North American variety (Jamaican English).The relative number of light verb constructions with the verbs make and do is very low in all English varieties and ranges from 0.1% to 1.7% except for Jamaican English where LVCs with do reach 7%.As seen from Table 1, the distribution of LVCs with the light verbs have, get, and give is different as well.The relative frequency of LVCs with give is higher than with the verbs have and get in all English varieties except for Tanzanian English despite the fact that the raw frequency of LVCs with the verb give is low in comparison to those with the verbs have and get.The relative frequency of LVCs with give ranges from 82% to even 100% in Asian varieties and from 77.7% to 90.4% in native varieties.In African varieties the frequency of LVCs with give is a little lower and ranges from 50% to 85.7%.
The light verb get in combination with the noun laugh has the second highest frequency in most English varieties.However, differently from the verb give, the difference in the frequency between get and have in most cases is only slight with the exception of American, Canadian, and Hong Kong Englishes.The use of LVCs with get rather than have is found in most native varieties except for New Zealand English, and Asian varieties except for Singaporean and Malaysian Englishes.Most African English varieties show a slight preference for LVCs with the light verb have except for Tanzanian English which tends to use get instead.
Table 2 shows complementation tendencies in LVCs where the deverbal noun laugh combines with the light verbs have, get, and give.As seen from LVCs with the light verb give is not characteristic of African English varieties as well as Jamaican English, though one case of complementation with the verb give is found in Ghanaian English.The comparison of complementation of LVCs with the light verbs have and get in terms of relative frequency clearly shows that the light verb get tends to take complements more often than the verb have except for Bangladeshi and Malaysian Englishes; however, the difference in the use of complements with the verbs have and get in these varieties of English is slight.The difference in the relative frequency in Nigerian English differs from all other varieties in that it is the only English variety out of 20 where LVCs select complements exclusively with the light verb have.To sum up, of the five light verbs used with the deverbal noun laugh, only three, i.e. have, get, and give, are found in all the 20 English varieties under investigation.LVCs with the light verbs do and make are used in most native varieties and Singaporean English which has advanced into phase 5 with some traces of phase 4.This could indicate that the further the language has progressed in the process of nativization, the larger the variety of light verbs is used to form LVCs. The verb give tends to form light verb constructions with the noun laugh more often than the verbs have and get though the number of such LVCs is lower when compared to LVCs with have and get.Though LVCs with have have the highest raw frequency, LVCs with get are formed more frequently in native and Asian varieties as well as Jamaican English.African varieties give preference to LVCs with the verb have.It should also be mentioned that the difference in the use of LVCs with have and get in most varieties is not very big with the exception of American, Canadian, and Hong Kong Englishes where the light verb get is found almost twice as often as have.Nigerian English differs from other English varieties in that it not only gives a clear preference to the light verb have, but it is also the only variety where complements are selected only by LVCs with have for the reason that LVCs with get and give are rare in this variety.Though the relative frequency of LVCs with the verb give is the highest, very few such constructions take complements; only 11 varieties out of 20.In terms of complementation, the light verb get again surpasses the verb have as in the majority of English varieties get selects complements more often than have with the difference in the relative frequency in most cases being twice as big.

Complementation Analysis
The complementation analysis of the light verb constructions with the deverbal noun laugh deals with complementation patterns selected by LVCs with different light verbs.The complementation study focuses on the light verbs have, get, and give; however, complementation patterns with the light verbs make and do are also briefly discussed.The description of complementation of LVCs includes not only most frequent complementation patterns found in most English varieties but also the patterns characteristic of some of the varieties7 to demonstrate distinct features of those varieties.
Table 3 presents data on the most frequent complementation patterns8 with the verbs under investigation.As seen from Table 3, LVCs with the light verb have take the ISSN 1392-8600 E-ISSN 1822-7805 Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2016, t. 18, Nr. 3 largest variety of complements in the Englishes under investigation if compared to the verbs get and give.They select five different complement patterns at + NP, about + NP, over + NP, with + NP, and on + NP.Though all the five patterns are synonymous, the preference is given to at + NP and about + NPwhich are found in all the 20 English varieties, whereas over + NP is used in 14 varieties, on + NP in 7 varieties, and with + NP in 6 varieties.
LVCs with the verb get select four complement patterns.The most popular pattern out of + NP is characteristic of 17 varieties of English.The pattern from + NP being in the second place is found in 14 varieties, at + NP in 10 varieties, and about + NP in only 4 varieties.
LVCs with the verb give also take four complement patterns, one of which is related to transitivity of the verb give, namely, to + NP.It is the most popular pattern with the verb give as it is found in 7 English varieties.The pattern at + NP is used in 4 varieties, about + NP and over + NP in 3 varieties.In general, LVCs with the verb give select few complements and only in 10 English varieties out of 20.This can be explained by the fact that the light verb give can take both monotransitive and ditransitive constructions, and in combination with the deverbal noun laugh ditransitive constructions prevail.Other variety specific complements selected by LVCs with the verb have are round/ around + NP(5a) (British and Hong Kong Englishes), and of + NP(5b) (Canadian English).
(HKE) b. <…> people would have laugh of her performance for days <…>.(CaE) LVCs with the verb get also select a big variety of rare complements.One of them, over + NP (6a) (American English), is characteristic of LVCs with the verbs have and give and two more with + NP (6b) (American, British, Indian, and Tanzanian Englishes) and on + NP (6c) (Malaysian and Philippine Englishes) are also found with the light verb have.
(6) a.As previously mentioned, the deverbal noun laugh can also combine with the light verbs make and do both found in 9 English varieties.The LVC make a laugh takes five complements of which the most typical one is of + NP found in 5 English varieties out of 9: American, British, Irish, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi Englishes.
( All in all, taking into account complementation of all five verbs, i.e. have, get, give, make, and do, it can be stated that only one complementation pattern is found with all the verbs: at + NP.The pattern about + NP is used with the light verbs have, get, give, and make though with the latter verb this pattern is rare.The pattern with + NP can selected by LVCs with the verbs have, get, and give; however, it is characteristic of only the verb have.The patterns on + NP, out of + NP, and from + NP are found with the light verbs have and get, but tend to be used only with one of them.The pattern of + NP is popular with the verb make, but rare with the verb have.A deviant complement for + NP is used with the verbs have and get.The analysis of complementation patterns in different Englishes clearly shows that the largest variety of both typical and rare patterns is found in native Englishes.LVCs with the light verb have select the biggest number complement patterns in the English varieties under investigation if compared to the verbs get and give.The light verb have also surpasses other verbs in that LVCs with the verb have take complements in more English varieties than the verbs get and give.Two complementation patterns used with the verb have are found in all 20 varieties, whereas the most frequent pattern found with the verb get is used in 17 varieties.Most LVCs with the verb give are ditransitive and take very few complements.

Concluding Remarks
The investigation shows that three of the five light verbs, namely, have, get, and give, which are used with the deverbal noun laugh can be found in all the 20 English varieties.LVCs with the light verbs do and make tend to be found in native Englishes and the non-native varieties that have advanced in the process of nativization.Of the three light verbs that are used in all varieties of English under investigation, the light verb give forms light verb constructions with the noun laugh more often than the verbs Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2016, t. 18, Nr. 3 have and get though the raw frequency of LVCs with give is lower if compared to LVCs with have and get.When LVCs with the verbs have and get are compared, there is a tendency to use the light verb get with the deverbal noun laugh in native and Asian English varieties as well as Jamaican English, whereas African varieties give preference to LVCs with the verb have.In terms of complementation, LVCs with the verb give select very few complements and only in 11 varieties out of 20.Complements of LVCs with the verb have are found in all the 20 varieties and with the verb get in 19 varieties; however, the light verb get surpasses the verb have as in most English varieties under investigation get selects complements more often than have.
The complementation analysis demonstrates that the complementation pattern at + NP is found with all five verbs, i.e. have, get, give, make, and do, the pattern about + NP is used with the light verbs have, get, give, and make.Other patterns, though found with a few light verbs, are characteristic of only one.Such are the patterns with + NP, on + NP, out of + NP, and from + NP.Though used with other verbs, the patterns with + NP and on + NP are typical of the verb have, whereas the patterns out of + NP and from + NP are first of all related to the verb get.In general, there is a tendency to transfer patterns characteristic of one light verb into LVCs with other verbs.There are also some rare patterns that are used only with some particular light verbs and are variety specific.However, the largest variety of both typical and rare patterns is found in native Englishes.The complementation study also revealed that LVCs with the light verb have select the biggest number complement patterns in the English varieties under investigation if compared to the verbs get and give.LVCs with the light verb have also take complements in more English varieties than the verbs get and give.
On the basis of the study of frequency and complementation of light verb constructions in different English varieties, it could be claimed that English varieties that have progressed further in the process of navitization tend to form LVCs with a greater number of light verbs and show a larger variety of complementation patterns.This view is based on the exploration of only one deverbal noun and needs further investigation which could include more deverbal nouns used with different light verbs.Further research of the light verb constructions in different English varieties could also focus on modification and determination patterns as well as on the exploration of semantic differences of LVCs where different light verbs combine with the same deverbal noun.

Table 2 ,
LVCs with the light verb give select complements only in 11 English varieties out of 20.These include most native varieties except for Canadian English and the majority of Asian varieties except for Sri Lankan, Pakistani, and Hong Kong Englishes.Complementation of Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2016, t. 18, Nr. 3

Table 2 .
Frequency data on complementation of light verb constructions with the light verbs have, get, and give in combination with the deverbal noun laugh 56

Table 3 .
Complementation of light verb constructions with the verbs have, get, and give when combined with the deverbal noun laugh 9 Table 3 includes only raw frequency for the reason that the complementation analysis focuses on the variety of complementation patterns used in different English varieties.

You gave me a laugh with the
Our whole family got a good laugh over that one.(AmE)b.Plus, he got a huge laugh with a precisely-executed swear word.(BrE)I got a real good laugh with your post here.(IndE)c. <…> I got a laugh on the set of 'Code Name: Jackal'.(MYE)LVCs with get can also take deviant complements off + NP (7a) (British and Australian Englishes), and for + NP (7b) (British English).