Cover not available

Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 46:2 (2025) ► pp.213–240

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Give, take, and make light verb constructions in mesolectal Malaysian English

A structural-aspectual analysis

ORCiD logo with link | Universiti Sains Malaysia
 | Universiti Sains Malaysia
Published online: 17 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.23026.ong
Abstract
This study analyses the structural and aspectual variants of give, take, and make light verb constructions (LVCs) (e.g. make a call) in mesolectal Malaysian English (MalE). A synchronic corpus of online forum data representing contemporary English use in Malaysia was developed for the analysis, and the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 was used as a reference. Findings show that, structurally, MalE LVCs prefer unmodified constructions with an indefinite article in active voice while, aspectually, they are mostly telic. To identify significant structural and aspectual variants of LVCs specific to either MalE or British English (BrE), a correlational analysis was conducted. MalE shows a higher proportion of zero-article LVCs, active voice LVCs, and bounded LVCs marked by prepositional phrase (PP)-to indicating telicity. Notably, mesolectal MalE aligns with BrE in its use of LVCs but diverges in other grammatical forms.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Structural and aspectual variants of LVCs
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Data generation using Sketch Engine
    • 3.2Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Distribution of MalE LVC structural variants
    • 4.2Distribution of MalE LVC aspectual variants
    • 4.3Structural and aspectual variants of MalE LVCs vs. BrE LVCs
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (48)
References
Abdul Rahim, Hajar, and Shakila Abdul Manan. 2014. English in Malaysia: Postcolonial and Beyond. Bern: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Algeo, John. 1995. “Having a Look at the Expended Predicate”. In Bas Aarts, and Charles F. Meyer, eds. The Verb in Contemporary English: Theory and Description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 203–217.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baskaran, Loga. 1987. “Aspects of Malaysian English Syntax”. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of London.
. 2005. A Malaysian English Primer: Aspects of Malaysian English Features. Kuala Lumpur: Universiti Malaya Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baym, Nancy K. 2010. Personal Connection in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2014. “Doing Sociolinguistic Research on Computer-Mediated Data: A Review of Four Methodological Issues”. Discourse, Context and Media 31: 14–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bonial, Claire, and Kimberly A. Pollard. 2020. “Choosing an Event Description: What a PropBank Study Reveals about the Contrast between Light Verb Constructions and Counterpart Synthetic Verbs”. Journal of Linguistics 561: 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borlongan, Ariane Macalinga, and Shirley N. Dita. 2015. “Taking a Look at Expanded Predicates in Philippine English Across Time”. Asian Englishes 171: 240–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brugman, Claudia. 2001. “Light Verbs and Polysemy”. Language Sciences 231: 551–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Wei-Te, Claire Bonial, and Martha Palmer. 2015. “English Light Verb Construction Identification Using Lexical Knowledge”. Proceedings from the Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Austin: AAAI Press, 2375–2381. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse. 1995. “On the Necessity of Distinguishing between (Un)boundedness and (A)telicity”. Linguistics and Philosophy 181: 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, M. W. Robert. (2005). “She Gave Him a Look, They Both Had a Laugh and then Took a Stroll: Give a Verb, Have a Verb and Take a Verb Constructions”. In Robert M. W. Dixon, ed. A Semantic Approach to English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 459–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gill, Saran Kaur. 1999. “Standards and Emerging Linguistic Realities in the Malaysian Workplace”. World Englishes 181: 215–231. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilquin, Gaetanelle. 2019. “Light Verb Constructions in Spoken L2 English: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study”. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 51: 181–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giparaite, Judita. 2015. “A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Constructions Have/Take/Get a Bath and Have/Take/Get a Rest in British English”. Man and the World/Foreign Languages 171: 37–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “A Corpus-Based Study of the Modification of Light Verb Constructions with the Deverbal Noun Laugh in British, American, and some Asian Varieties of English”. Scientific Bulletin of Chernivtsi University: A collection of scientific works. Series: German Philology: 277–296.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haji Othman, Noor Azam, and James McLellan. 2014. “English in Brunei”. World Englishes 331: 486–497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Sebastian, Marianne Hundt, and Joybrato Mukherjee. 2011. “Indian English — An Emerging Epicentre? A Pilot Study on Light Verbs in Web-Derived Corpora of South Asian Englishes”. Anglia 1291: 258–280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kachru, Yamuna, and Larry E. Smith. 2008. Cultures, Contexts, and World Englishes. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laporte, Samantha. 2017. “Light Verb Constructions in Second-Language Varieties of English: A Corpus-Based Investigation of Nativization in Hong Kong English”. Paper presented at Light Verb Constructions in Germanic Languages, Université Saint-Louis.
Leech, Geoffrey, Marianne Hundt, Christian Mair, and Nicholas Smith. 2009. Change in Contemporary English: A Grammatical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Live, H. Anna. 1973. “The Take-Have Phrasal in English”. Linguistics 111: 31–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, Robbie. 2017. “The Spoken British National Corpus 2014: Design, Compilation and Analysis”. Ph.D. Dissertation, Lancaster University.
Mehl, Seth. 2019. “Light Verb Semantics in the International Corpus of English: Onomasiological Variation, Identity Evidence and Degrees of Lightness”. English Language and Linguistics 231: 55–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mukherjee, Joybrato. 2010. “Corpus-based Insights into Verb-Complementational Innovations in Indian English: Cases of Nativised Semantico-Structural Analogy”. In Alexandra N. Lenz, and Albrecht Plewnia, eds. Grammar between Norm and Variation. Bern: Peter Lang, 219–241.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mukherjee, Joybrato, and Sebastian Hoffmann. 2006. “Describing Verb-Complementational Profiles of New Englishes: A Pilot Study of Indian English”. English World-Wide 271: 147–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, M. Lynne. 2010. Lexical Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olavarría de Ersson, Eugenia and Philip Shaw. 2003. “Verb complementation patterns in Indian Standard English”. English World-Wide 241: 137–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ong, S. B. Christina, and Hajar Abdul Rahim. 2021. “Nativised Structural Patterns of Make Light Verb Construction in Malaysian English”. Concentric 471: 93–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pedregosa, Fabian, Gaël Varoquaux, Alexandre Gramfort, Vincent Michel, Bertrand Thirion, Olivier Grisel, Mathieu Blondel, Peter Prettenhofer, Ron Weiss, Vincent Dubourg, Jake Vanderplas, Alexandre Passos, David Cournapeau, Matthieu Brucher, Matthieu Perrot, and Édouard Duchesnay. 2011. “Scikit-learn: Machine Learning in Python”. Journal of Machine Learning Research 121: 2825–2830.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Platt, John, Heidi Weber, and Ho Main Lian. 1984. The New Englishes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ronan, Patricia. 2019. “Simple versus Light Verb Constructions in Late Modern Irish English Correspondence: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis”. Studia Neophilologica 911: 31–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schneider, W. Edgar. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shahrokny-Prehn, Arian, and Silke Hoche. 2011. “Rising through the Registers — A Corpus-based Account of the Stylistic Constraints on Light Verb Constructions”. Corpus 101: 239–257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John. 2011. Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. New York: Harper CollinsGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John and Gwyneth Fox. 1990. Collins Cobuild English Grammar. London: Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sketch Engine. 2018. “Sketch Engine”. Version 2.5. 〈[URL]〉 (accessed January 31, 2020)
Sung, C. C. Matthew. 2015. “Hong Kong English: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives”. Language and Linguistics Compass 91: 256–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali and R. Harald Baayen. 2012. “Models, Forests, and Trees of York English: Was/Were Variation as a Case Study for Statistical Practice”. Language Variation and Change 241: 135–178. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Rompaey, T. 2013. “The Development of P+NP+ of/to + V(-ing) Progressive Aspect Markers”. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. and Randy J. LaPolla. 1997. Syntax: Structure, meaning and function. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. “Verbs and Times”. Philosophical Review 661: 143–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vollmann, Ralf and Soon Tek Wooi. 2019. “The Sociolinguistic Status of Malaysian English”. Grazer Linguistische Studien 911: 133–150.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. “Why Can You Have a Drink When You Can’t *Have an Eat?”. Language 581: 753–799. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wittenberg, Eva and Roger Levy. 2017. “If You Want a Quick Kiss, Make it Count: How Choice of Syntactic Construction Affects Event Construal”. Journal of Memory and Language 941: 254–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue