Les verbes supports métaphoriques

This paper deals with a particular type of support verb : metaphorical support verbs. This subject raises the question of the range of the notion ‘support verb’ and the question of the semantic role of support verbs. We can register a lot of these metaphorical support verbs : about 100 in French : e.g. nourrir une haine viscérale, bombarder de conseils, la révolte couve, etc. We can speak about a metaphor when a verb appropriate to a class is used to actualize another class :

nourrir <feu>, <êtres animés : humains, animaux>,

→ nourrir <sentiment>

= nourrir une haine viscérale contre N

Metaphorical support verbs have the particularity of enriching and completing the sense of the nominal predicate, which moreover they have to actualize. This explains why they cannot be deleted without losing any information. In this article we present the main methodological principles for an analysis of this kind of verbs applied to the support verbs nourrir “haine” and esquisser “mouvement, description”. This study will allow us to know the syntactic specificities of these verbs better.