Full verb
A main verb is a verb ( activity word ) that forms the core of a sentence and can only serve as a predicate of a sentence. So a main verb is a verb that is a content word . In contrast, there are various other classes of verbs that have more grammatical functions, can only appear in connection with a main verb, and form small, closed classes that cannot be easily expanded. The class of non-full verbs is divided into different categories, in German grammar, for example, a distinction is made between the classes of auxiliary verbs ( haben, sein, werden ; to form tenses and passive), modal verbs , copula verbs , and others.
example
In the sentence “Hans carries the bag” there is only the inflected full verb “carry”. In the sentence variant “Hans carried the bag” there is the two-part predicate “has carried”. In this, a division of the performance of the predicate is visible: "has" as an auxiliary verb carries the inflection categories person , number , tense and mode , and is therefore responsible for the finiteness of the sentence, i.e. also responsible for the appearance of a nominative case on the subject. The other part “carried” as a main verb, on the other hand, defines the content-related properties of the sentence, including the content-related role of the expression in the subject and object position.
Full verbs in contrast to auxiliary verbs and light verbs
Identical form to auxiliary verbs
There are words in German that appear in different variants, namely once as a full verb and once as auxiliary verbs. In the sentence "Hans has a car" is has a transitive main verb meaning "possess"; However, the auxiliary verb haben , which expresses the perfect tense , has the same form . The verb get can be a main verb (“My sister is having a baby”); However, an auxiliary verb for a variant of the passive is identical in form ("He got his driving license removed."; see under active and passive in German # Passive with "get" ).
Difference to light verbs
Another distinction is that between full verbs and light verbs (a term that has similarities with the more well-known term functional verb ). In the linguistic literature, a distinction is made, according to which auxiliary verbs express grammatical categories (such as time stage or passive in the examples in the previous paragraph), but light verbs contribute components of the event description. An example is:
- give someone a kick.
This use of the verb haben is not an auxiliary verb, because instead of grammatical properties it expresses aspects of the event description, such as the transition of an impulse. It is also not a full verb, because the substantive designation of the event is the noun Tritt . The light verb give in the above example differs from the full verb in that it has a purely schematic meaning and that it cannot stand alone in this meaning.
The definition of the light verb just presented shows that not every sentence has to have a main verb.
literature
- Hadumod Bußmann : Lexicon of Linguistics. 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-520-45203-0 .
- Duden. The grammar. 8th edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-411-04048-3 .
- Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th, updated and revised edition. JB Metzler, Stuttgart et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02335-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ In Dudengrammatik (2009), p. 414 ff., The various non-full verbs are summarized under the title “Verbs with special functions”.
- ↑ Miriam Butt , Wilhelm Geuder: Light verbs in Urdu and Grammaticalization. In Regine Eckardt, Klaus von Heusinger, Christoph Schwarze (eds.): Words in Time: Diachronic Semantics from Different Points of View . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2003. pp. 295-349.