Complex predicate

In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that functions as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning. The other, "primary", component is a verb or noun which carries most of the semantics of the compound, and determines its arguments. It is usually in either base or [in Verb + Verb compounds] conjunctive participial form.

A compound verb is also called a "complex predicate" because the semantics, as formally modeled by a predicate, is determined by the primary verb, though both verbs appear in the surface form. Whether Noun+Verb (N+V) compounds are considered to be "compound verbs" is a matter of naming convention. Generally, the term complex predicate usually includes N+V compounds, whereas the term compound verb is usually reserved for V+V compounds. However, several authors [especially Iranists] refer to N+V compounds as compound verbs.

Compound verbs are to be distinguished from serial verbs which typically signify a sequence of actions, and in which the verbs are relatively equal in semantic and grammatical weight. They are also to be distinguished from sequences of main plus auxiliary verbs.

Thus, there are two classes of complex predicates:

Compound verbs of both types (V+V and N+V) are very common in all the languages of India, though V+V compounds are more frequent in the northern Indo-Aryan languages than in Dravidian languages. In addition to South Asian languages, V+V compounds occur in Altaic languages like Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Uyghur, in Tibeto-Burman languages like Limbu and Newari, in Korean and Japanese, in northeast Caucasian languages like Tsez and Avar, and in Quichua, a variety of Quechua. The Indo-European language Greek also possesses some verb–verb compounds. V+V compounds do not occur in Iranian languages. What are called "compound verbs" by Iranists are N+V compounds.

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