Support (= Light) Verbs

The paper proposes a formal definition of support verb as (roughly) a semantically empty verb serving as a syntactic “prop” to a predicative noun such that the phrase V (support) (N) + N is synonymous with the verb V 0 derived form N: ‘V (support) (N) + N’ = ‘V 0 (N)’, as in ‘to give an order’ = ‘to order’ or ‘to receive an order’ = ‘to be ordered’. The following points are discussed: support verbs as collocates, representation of support verbs in terms of lexical functions, semantic and syntactic properties of support verbs, semantic additions to support verbs (in particular, causation and phasic meanings), realization verbs, and the role of support verbs in theoretical and applied linguistics.


The Statement of the Problem
This paper's goal is to offer a logically coherent, comprehensive and formal enough description of an important subclass of verbs in world languages: so-called support verbs.This perspective requires a strict formal frame, and the Meaning-Text approach is adopted as such a frame (e.g., Mel'čuk 2012Mel'čuk -2015Mel'čuk or 2016)); it is taken to be known to the reader.Its fundamental notions-describing the language in the direction from Meaning to Text, the deep-syntactic structure, actants, government pattern, syntactic relations, phrasemes, lexical functions, etc.-and corresponding formalisms are used practically with no explanations.
The paper has all the characteristics of an encyclopedia article: it presents no new facts and no new solutions to some old problems, but makes an attempt to expound the key elements of available knowledge about support verbs systematically and logically.
The literature on support verbs is too rich for a reasonable overview; therefore, references are reduced to a strict minimum.A detailed enough description of support verbs even in one language would require a lengthy monograph, and thus the subsequent discussion is limited practically to support verbs in Standard Average European [SAE] languages, more specifically in English.Illustrations are basically from English, but also from French and Russian.Many important linguistic properties of support verbs are passed over.

The Notion of Support Verb
The verbs under consideration are also known as light verbs; however, the term support verb has to be preferred, since it explicitly refers to the main function of these verbs: to serve as verbal support for predicative nouns, that is, to make them "grammatically fit" to be used in the syntactic position of the head of a sentence.
Condition 2 of Definition 1 can be illustrated by such examples as 'to make a decision' = 'to decide', 'to give a groan' = 'to groan', 'to put NY under quarantine' = 'to quarantine NY', 'to offer NY an apology' = 'to apologize to NY', etc. NEO.2022.34.03 p. 4/30 Igor Mel'čuk In other words, the meaning of the phrase V(support)→N is identical to the meaning of a full verb derivationally related to N and having the same meaning as N. Let us denote such a verb as V 0 , N as S 0 (V 0 ), and V(support) as V(support)(S 0 (V 0 )).Then we can write 'V 0 ' = 'S 0 (V 0 )←V(support)(S 0 (V 0 ))' This semantic equality, expressed in terms of lexical functions [LFs], underlies all paraphrastic manipulations with the V(support)s.
NB The above equality holds only "ideally."In actual texts, it is often violated, just as beautiful physical laws are violated in ugly practical reality.Therefore, in many cases special amendments are needed in the lexicographic description of particular V(support)→N collocations; see Section 5.
Thus, a V(support) does not add lexical meaning to "its" predicative noun; it plays a strictly syntactic role: supplies the top node of the syntactic tree of the sentence (a sentence is impossible without a finite verb as its syntactic head).
In many cases, a semantically full verb equivalent to the phrase V(support)→N may be absent from the language.Thus, English does not have a full verb synonymous with A misfortune befalls [NX]; there are no full verbs for engage in an activity, give an ovation, have an affair, issue an ultimatum, pay attention, take a break, etc.In other words, the corresponding semantic predicates have only nominal expressions.
3) A V(support) in a V(support)→N phrase is semantically empty.This statement has the following precise technical sense: "A V(support) is semantically empty" means that it is selected by the Speaker and introduced into the DSynt-structure of the utterance under production not as all "normal" lexical units are, that is, in order to express its own meaning, but in order to fulfill a necessary syntactic role-to be the syntactic tree's top node and to carry the obligatory verbal grammemes (the mood and, perhaps, the tense). 24) In spite of its semantic emptiness (in the above technical sense), a V(support) appears in the DSynt-structure: without it a well-formed syntactic structure dominated by an N('σ') as a syntactic representation of a sentence is impossible.
On the notion of support verb, see also Langer 2005.

Support Verbs as Collocates
From the definition of support verb it does not follow that in a phrase V(support)→N the V(support) must be phraseologically bound by N. In other words, the selection of the V(support) by the Speaker is not necessarily function of N. For instance, Japanese, where V(support)→N phrases are widespread, has practically just one support verb for all possible semantically predicative Ns: suru 'do'.But in an SAE language (and this paper is intended to account, in the first place, for V(support)→N phrases precisely in Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages), a V(support) is, as a general rule, specific to the corresponding N: the phrase V(support)→N is a semantic-lexemic phraseme, or, more precisely, a collocation.

Definition 2: semantic-lexemic phraseme
A phrase is a semantic-lexemic phraseme if and only if it is constrained with respect to its meaning.
When, in order to express a given meaning, the Speaker produces a semantic-lexemic phraseme, he cannot select all the necessary lexemic components independently of each other-each one for its own meaning and other properties; at least some of these components are selected as function of others.
There are two families of semantic-lexemic phrasemes: semantically compositional, called collocations, and semantically non-compositional, or idioms; in what follows, idioms are left out.NEO.2022.34.03 p. 6/30 Igor Mel'čuk Definition 3: collocation A semantic-lexemic phraseme is a collocation if and only if it is semantically compositional.
"Phrase L1⊕L2 is semantically compositional" means that 'L1⊕L2' = 'L1'⊕'L2': in prose, the meaning of the regular union of the lexemes L1 and L2 is equal to the regular union of their meanings 'L1' and 'L2'.In a collocation, one lexeme is selected by the Speaker freely-for its meaning; this is the base.The other lexeme is selected as a function of the base; this is the collocate, which expresses the remaining part of the collocation's meaning.
Such is the case of a V(support)→N phrase in an SAE language: N is selected for its own meaning, but the corresponding V(support) is selected-to fulfill the necessary syntactic role, that is, to be the top node of the syntactic tree-as a function of its N. Thus, the phrase V(support)→N in an SAE language is a collocation, of which N is the base and V(support) is the collocate.
A V(support) phrase is a collocation, and the collocations are described by means of lexical functions.(For more on collocations, see Mel'čuk 2023.)

Support Verbs and Lexical Functions
Lexical functions represent a formal technique introduced for the description of collocations: a collocate is function of the base, which allows for its specification by special functions (in the mathematical sense), whose arguments and values are lexical units (for LFs, see Mel'čuk 2012-2015: vol. 3, Ch. 14 and Mel'čuk & Polguère 2021).
An LF is identified by an abbreviated Latin name, see below.The argument of an LF-i.e., the base of the corresponding collocation-is called its keyword (in order to avoid the proliferation of polysemy of the term argument).The value of an LF is, generally speaking, a set of (near)synonymous lexical units.In what follows, the keyword of an LF is denoted by L; in the examples, the keyword is printed in small caps, and the elements of the LF's value, in boldface.
Three LFs describe all logically possible syntactic types of support verbs: ).For a support verb LF, the keyword is a (predicative) noun; the keyword's meaning must be a semantic predicate.(With quasi-predicative nouns denoting entitiesdevices, vehicles, substances, etc.-the realization verbs are used, see Section 6.) Oper i , Func i and Labor ij are deep lexemes, which appear only in DSyntstructures.They are linguistically universal in that they exist a priori in any language-with the same properties.The elements of their value, that is, the actual support verbs, are their surface implementations.Reasoning on the DSynt-level and in terms of LFs, one can say there are three language-universal support verbs, named above.Let us illustrate them one after the other.
Here and below, English examples are given in alphabetical order of the keywords.In French and Russian examples the keywords are semantic equivalents of the English ones and follow their order.
The subscripts i and j to the names of LFs refer to the DSynt-actants of the keyword: the subscript 0 means that there is no such actant, 1 indicates DSynt-actant I,

Oper i
Oper i is a verb that, as indicated, takes its keyword L as its DSynt-actant II; DSyntactant I of Oper 1 is DSynt-actant I of L, and DSynt-actant I of Oper 2 is DSyntactant II of L. Oper 0 has no DSynt-actant I.

Oper 1
Oper 2 english "Higher" Opers are not known (for the time being).But the technique of numbering DSynt-actants allows for their easy introduction, should they be discovered one day.
Logically, an Oper 0 , that is, an Oper having no DSynt-actant I and a dummy SSynt-Subject, is possible and a couple examples are found in Russian: What has been said about a tri-actantial keyword in connection with Oper 3 is valid for Func 3 as well: difference ZIII between XI and YII : (1) a. Oper 0 : { ?Another way to summarize the system of support verbs that serve a bi-actantial predicative noun L is in the form of a table.The semantic relation between the three V(support)s is conversion, for instance:  The subscript "1 " to Conv stands for 'DSynt-actant I of DSynt-actant I of the keyword': the lexeme their in the last example.
Such equivalences underlie paraphrasing rules formulated in terms of V(support)s (Section 8).
The three V(support)s are not equal in that Oper 1 s are several times more numerous in a language than Oper 2 s, and even more so than Funcs and Labors.This is quite natural: the semantic links of a verb are the strongest with its DirO, and this guarantees that the crushing majority of constrained V→N phrases are of the form V→DirO. 3 The semantic links are much weaker in the combination V→Subj and the weakest are for V→IndirO / OblO.NEO.2022.34.03 p. 12/30 Igor Mel'čuk 5 Some Relevant Properties of Support Verb Collocations Semantics Two of the crucial semantic properties of support verb collocations will be indicated here: • semantic discrepancies between a V(support)→N and the corresponding lexical verb; • "impure" V(support)s.
Such examples can be cited in droves.
At the same time, also in many cases, the said equivalence breaks down: (3) a. John kissed Mary.≅ b.John gave Mary a kiss.
Similarly, there is no full semantic equivalence in (4): (4) Russian a.To be protected against wrong equivalences, it is necessary to indicate with each V(support) the corresponding semantic constraints.
"Impure" V (support) s (= configurational LFs) On many occasions a V(support) appears with a semantic addition (this addition is boxed in the examples below): (5) a. make an effort = Oper 1 (effort)→effort, but spare no effort = [Magn + Oper 1 ](effort)→effort: the verb spare [no …] serves not only as an Oper 1 , but also expresses a high degree of effort (the LF Magn).b.Clouds scud across the skies denotes, in addition to the presence of clouds, their rapid movement: Clouds scud across the skies = [ moving fast + Func 0 ](clouds)→clouds c. lavish [NY] with compliments means that there are many compliments: [Magn quant + Labor 12 ](compliments)→compliments Such semantic additions are part of configurational LFs, which appear in the DSynt-structure; no semantic nuance is lost in the proposed description.

Syntax
A support verb V(support) is, as stated above, semantically empty or emptied; because of this, either it has no semantic actants, or, if it has them (in the lexicon), they are ignored in its usage as a V(support).Nevertheless, a V(support) appears in the DSynt-structure; therefore, it has its own DSynt-actants.The V(support)'s DSynt-actants correspond to the DSynt-actants of its keyword L (i.e., of the supported noun / adjective).However, the correspondence is not one-to-one, and this happens for an obvious reason: the V(support) takes L itself as its "additional" DSynt-actant, and L's DSynt-actants may (and sometimes must) migrate to the V(support).This produces a shift in the actantial numbers in L's DSynt-actants.A possible result is illustrated in Figure 2: In a V(support)→N collocation, the DSynt-actants of N may stay with N or migrate to V(support)-depending on V(support) and / or on N. Sometimes such a migration is obligatory (the migrating actant is boxed): (6) a. John apologized to the fans.
b. John's←apology→to the fans c. John gave→the fans a heartfelt apology.
In other cases, it is impossible: ( The necessary information must be stored in the government patterns of V(support)s, see Section 7.
For a detailed discussion of the distribution of N's DSynt-actants between the N and the V(support) in V(support)→N collocations, see Alonso Ramos 2004, pp. 253-270 and2007.

Morphology
Particular languages impose particular morphological restrictions on the members of V(support)→N collocations; here are the most frequent ones.

The Noun
In an SAE language that has the inflectional category of determination, that is, articles, the V(support)→N collocation (as, by the way, all collocations) may show certain particularities as regards the presence / absence of the corresponding grammemes.Thus, in [to] open fire the noun has no article, while in [to] give an account an article (or another determiner) with the noun is necessary.The use of determiners with the supported noun N-the keyword of the corresponding V(support)-depends as well on NEO.2022.34.03 p. 15/30 Support (= Light) Verbs the presence of a modifier with this N.The inflectional number of N-singular vs. plural-may also be fixed in a particular collocation.(See Alonso Ramos 2001b.)

The Verb
In many English V(support)→N collocations, the passivization of the verb is impossible: (9) The man on the right gave a groan.vs. *A groan was given by the man on the right.
All such particularities are also described in a V(support)'s government pattern.

Regular Semantic Additions to a Support Verb (= Complex LFs)
As was said, support verbs, being semantically empty, readily accept various meaning additions.Among these the following two stand out-because of their regularity and systematicity: • phasal meanings, i.e., 'beginning', 'continuation' and 'end' (of a dynamic fact L); and • causation meanings, i.e., 'causing the beginning', 'causing the continuation' and 'causing the end', as well as 'not causing the end' (of fact L).Phasal and causation meanings are represented by phasal and causation LFs; these LFs are joined to the support verb LFs and form with them so-called complex LFs.The phasal and causation LFs are, of course, semantically full.

A Support Verb Plus a Phasal Verb
The three phasal meanings have the following semantic structures: 'L begins' = '⟦no L,⟧ then L' 'L ends' = '⟦L,⟧ then no L' 'L continues' = '⟦L,⟧ then L does not end' These meanings are captured by the three phasal LF-verbs: 'begin' -Incep; 'end' -Fin; 'continue' -Cont NEO.2022.34.03 p. 16/30 Igor Mel'čuk A phasal verb does not change the actantial structure of the support verb to which it is added; thus, IncepOper 1 has the same actantial structure as Oper 1 , etc.

A Support Verb Plus a Causation Verb
There are three causation meanings that are modeled by LF-verbs: 'to cause fact L to begin' -Caus 'to cause fact L to end' -Liqu 'not to cause fact L to end' -Perm Like phasal LFs, the causation LFs are also linked by semantic relations based on negation: In sharp contrast to phasal LFs, a causation LF introduces, in the general case, a new actant with respect to L's actants: the Cause / the Causer; this changes the actantial structure of the support verb to which a causation verb is added.The additional actant is DSynt-actant I, and the numbers of all V(support)'s own actants are increased by 1.For instance (the Roman numbers in subscript indicate the DSynt-actants of the V(support)): Just as with the support verbs, the three causation verbs are not equal: the semantically simplest Caus appears about three times more frequently than Liqu, while the most complex Perm is 25 times rarer than Liqu.(The numbers come from my own databases for English and French collocations.) The actantial structure of a causation verb can be complicated by the following fact: the Cause / the Causer can be one of the participants of the situation denoted by the keyword L. Thus, the person who throws a party normally is one of those who take part in it.In such a case, the name of the causation LF carries the number of the corresponding L's actant: throw in throw a party is encoded as Caus 1 Func 0 (party).More examples: NEO.2022.34.03 p. 19/30 Support (= Light) Verbs

Realization Verbs
Along with support verbs, natural languages make extensive use of so-called realization verbs Real i , Fact i and Labreal ij .Contrary to support verbs, which are semantically empty, realization verbs are semantically full: they mean, roughly, 'fulfill the requirement of the keyword L' = 'do with L what one is supposed to do with L' or 'L fulfills its own requirement'; they also, like support verbs, form collocations with their bases.
The "requirements" in question are particular components in the L's definition: thus, the "requirement" of a hypothesis is its confirmation, since 'X's hypothesis on Y being Z' ≈ 'explanation Z of a phenomenon Y proposed by X and expected to be shown valid or not'.Similarly, the "requirement" of an illness is the malfunctioning < death of the organism affected: 'illness of X' ≈ 'temporary state of the organism of X that tends to cause its malfunctioning and perhaps eventually death'.The "requirement" of an artifact is that it be used according to its intended function-that is, to do whatever it was designed for.
Real 0/i [Lat.realis 'real'], Fact 0/i [Lat.factum 'fait'] and Labreal ij [is a hybrid of Labor and Real] are (more or less) propositionally synonymous full verbs, different with respect to their syntax; their keywords are nouns whose meaning includes the component corresponding to a "requirement": 'supposed to…', 'tending to…', 'designed to…', etc.
Syntactically, Real i , Fact i and Labreal ij are analogous to the LFs Oper i , Func i and Labor ij , respectively.The keyword L and its DSyntAs fulfill with respect to Real i the same syntactic roles as they do with respect to Oper i , etc. Therefore, realization verbs are linked to their keywords in the following way: Eng.Fact 0 (film(N)) = is playing, is on Fr.Fact 0 (film) = se joue lit.'is played', ˹est à l'affiche˺ lit.'is on the poster' Rus.Fact 0 (filʹm) = idët lit.'is walking' Eng. Fact 0 (wish(N)) = ˹comes true˺ Fr.Fact 0 (désir 'wish(N)') = devient réalité lit.'becomes reality' Rus.Fact 0 (želani|e 'wish(N)') = sbyvaetsja lit.'realizes itself'

Support Verbs in Theoretical Linguistics
The support verbs as a specific subclass of verbs are important for the linguistic theory, since they feature several peculiarities that have to be paid close attention.Three examples can be cited here: V(support)s in syntax, in lexicography and in neurolinguistics.

Syntax: extraction from the V (support) phrases
Let there be a phrase of the form N1-obl-obj→N2 (e.g., an attackN 1 -obl-obj→against the cityN 2 ) that is the DirO of а verb V.The subphrase N2 = against the city can be extracted by interrogation or clefting if and only if this V is a V(support) (more generally, any LF verb; Abeillé 1988)  The phraseologized (collocational) character of SAE support verbs is manifested in that a V(support) may require a specific government.Thus, NX has influence on NY, but holds influence over NY; you give NY a good lesson or give a good lesson to NY, but you can only give NY a good whack (no *give a good whack to NY); something is on the increase, but somebody is under suspicion; NX takes pride in NY, but a look at NY; etc.Because of this, the V(support)s in the lexicon-where they are stored in the restricted lexical cooccurrence zone of lexical entries-must be supplied with their own government patterns.Here is an example: V(support)s for the noun attention with their government patterns.As can be seen from these examples, a government pattern of a V(support) specifies as well the determination of the keyword, since it is also phraseologized.But this NEO.2022.34.03 p. 22/30 Igor Mel'čuk is still not the end of the story: as indicated in Section 4, a V(support)→N collocation may feature various restrictions concerning both V and N.As a result, a V(support) in a lexical entry of its keyword can involve a mini-entry of its own.

Neurolinguistics: Neural Processing of the V (support) phrases
An experimental psycholinguistic study (of German V(support) phrases; Wittenberg et al. 2014) has discovered an important fact: a V(support) phrase-such as [NX] takes control [of NY]-needs more time to be understood 1) than a phrase with the same noun, but with a semantically full verb-e.g., [NX] describes the control [of NY], and 2) than a phrase with the homophonous full verb and a non-predicative noun-e.g., take an orange.A plausible hypothesis (put forth by the authors) to explain this phenomenon is that the slowdown is due to the additional computations necessary for properly superposing the actantial structures of the V(support) and its keyword noun.

Support Verbs in Paraphrasing / Translation
LFs-that is, among others, support verbs-have two crucial applications: • In the lexicon, LFs ensure a correct lexicalization of the starting semantic representation, since they specify the appropriate collocates for eventual collocation bases.• In the process of text production, LFs ensure a convenient formalization of synonymous paraphrasing both within a given language and between languages-that is, of translation operations.The role of LFs in the lexicon (for lexical choices) has been illustrated in Section 7; now it is turn of paraphrasing.The preponderant role of synonymy, that is, of paraphrasing in natural language is one of the pillars of the Meaning-Text approach; LFs in general and V(support) LFs in particular constitute a powerful tool for describing intra-and inter-lingual paraphrasing.
The main paraphrasing rule involving V(support) LFs is as follows: (13) L(V) = S 0 (L(V))←II-Oper 1 (S 0 (L(V))) For L(V) = act(V): to act ≡ to take action For L(V) = fine(V): to fine [NY] ≡ to slap a fine [on NY] For L(V) = kiss(V): to kiss [NY] ≡ to give [NY] a kiss NEO.2022.34.03 p. 23/30 Support (= Light) Verbs Since Oper i , Func i and Labor ij are related between themselves as conversives (Section 4, p. 11), it is easy to derive numerous similar equalities from ( 13) by substituting into this rule other support verbs (with the corresponding syntactic adaptations).Thus, one has: For L(V) = answer(V): to answer Where a lexical equivalent does not exist in the necessary syntactic form in the language under consideration, a conventional form (marked with an asterisk) is used; such a "pseudolexeme" is exploited in syntactic computations, but does not, of course, appear in the output sentence.3) Language-universal DSynt-paraphrasing rules, of the ( 13) and ( 14) type.NEO.2022.34.03 p. 24/30 Igor Mel'čuk Consider the (partial and simplified) DSynt-structure (16a) of the English sentence (15) and its French and Russian equivalents:

Support Verbs in World Languages
In SAE languages V(support)s play a very important, but not vital role, since in principle it is possible to do without them.However, in some languages they are *Johni enehakɨl hanɨn koŋpu 'by.John linguistics done study'.
Simply put, a Quasi-DirO is more constrained than a DirO; it seems to "coalesce" with the support verb.

Conclusion
The present paper constitutes an attempt to offer a rigorous characterization of an important class of verbs-the so-called support, or light, verbs, which are used in many languages as a vital tool of turning predicative nouns into syntactic predicates, that is, in a sense, into Main Verbs.This characterization is done within the framework of a deductive notional system, where each notion is either an indefinibilium, or is defined strictly by the indefinibilia and notions that have been previously defined.Such an approach gives the proposed characterization sufficient robustness and sufficient descriptive power to represent not only the support verbs, but also a few contiguous verb classes.At the same time, the description of support verbs is placed in the realm of phraseology, since phrases of the V(support)→N form are typical collocations.And since collocations are to be described in a lexicon, the support verbs become an important object of lexicology and lexicography.As a result, the paper may contribute to general syntax, general phraseology and general lexicology / lexicography.

XI's
Figure1visualizes the relations between the three support verbs (for the keyword interrogation).

|
Labor 21 : { ?has X over I.} Labor 12 : subjects Y to I. O p e r 2 : u n d e r g o e s O p e r 1 : c o n d u c t s | Oper 0 : { ?[it] gives I.} | Labor 01 : { ?[it] sends X to Y for I.} | Func 0 : ˹takes place˺ Ø DUMMY Ø DUMMY NEO.2022.34.03 p. 11/30 Support (= Light) Verbs

Figure 2
Figure 2 An Oper 1 's Actantial Structure as the Result of L's Migrating DSynt-actants JohnX I was Oper 1 in despair II .b. JohnX I sank IncepOper 1 into despair II .c. Mary's letter I sent CausIncepOper 1 JohnX II into despair III .
Labor ij [Lat.laborāre 'to work'], which takes the keyword L as its DSynt-actant III (IndirO or OblO); for instance, Labor 12 (respect) = hold [NY in ~]: hold-III→respect (The scientific community holds Debakey's work II in high respect III . I (Subject); for instance, Func 1 (misfortune) = befall [NX]: misfortune←I-befall (A terrible misfortune I befell the child.).• It gives the interrogation II of the suspect by Commissioner McPherson.}b.Oper 1 : Commissioner McPherson conducts the interrogation II of the suspect.c.Oper 2 : The suspect undergoes the interrogation II by Commissioner McPherson.d.Func 0 : The interrogation I of the suspect by Commissioner McPherson takes place.e. Func 1 : { ?The interrogation I of the suspect comes from Commissioner II McPherson.}f.Func 2 : { ?The interrogation I by Commissioner McPherson concerns the suspect II .}g. Labor 01 : { ?It sends the suspect II to Commissioner III McPherson for interrogation IV .}h.Labor 12 : Commissioner McPherson I submits the suspect II to interrogation III .i. Labor 21 : { ?The suspect I has Commissioner II McPherson over [his] interrogation III .}

table 1
Support Verbs and Their DSynt-Actants

's DSyntA I is: V(supp)'s DSyntA II is: V(supp)'s DSyntA III is:
The "extra" DSynt-actants appear with Labors (and not only: see immediately below), because the keyword itself becomes an additional actant of the support verb. 2. In the SSynt-structure the verbs that implement the "0" support verb and have no DSynt-actant I / L's II L's I / L's II / L's I L's II / L / L NB 1.I receive a dummy SSynt-subject: Ø DUMMY .
7) a. John uses this technique.
b. John's←use→of this technique c. John makes→use→of this technique.~ *John makes→of this technique an intensive use.And quite often, the DSynt-actant migration is possible, but not obligatory: (8) a. John lectures the club members.b.John's←lecture→to the club members c. John gave-[a]→lecture→to the club members.d.John gave→the club members a very interesting lecture.
French and Russian do not have a verb semantically equivalent to the English [to] lecture; both languages use instead the collocations donner une conférence 'give a lecture' and čitatʹ lekciju lit.'read a lecture'.Nevertheless, accurate