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.
The English lexicon contains a few true compound verbs, such as stirfry, kickstart and forcefeed.
[2] English also expresses aspectual distinctions as to the beginning, duration, completion, or repetition of an action using auxiliaries.
Examples include to think something over, to look forward to something, and to look up something in a dictionary (contrast the literal and non-compound look up the chimney).
There is no alternation with a simplex counterpart and in approximately half of all Hind-Urdui N+V compound verbs karnā ( करना, کَرنا, lit.
The meaning of compound verbs in Persian is sometimes distinct from the connotation of either the verbal or non-verbal component.
Other common verbal elements include دادن dādan ('to give'), e.g. انجام دادن anjām dādan ('to perform'); گرفتن gereftan ('to take'), e.g. جشن گرفتن jashn gereftan ('to celebrate'); زدن zadan ('to hit'), e.g. حرف زدن harf zadan ('to speak'); and داشتن dāshtan ('to have'), e.g. دوست داشتن dust dāshtan ('to like').
The verbal element of Persian compound verbs takes inflection for person, tense, and mood.
فكرfekrthoughtمیmiPRESكنمkonamdo-Iفكر می كنمfekr mi konamthought PRES do-I'I think'آنهاānhātheyباbatoمنmanmeحرفharfspeechزدندzadandPAST-hit-theyآنها با من حرف زدندānhā ba man harf zadandthey to me speech PAST-hit-they'They spoke to me'!جشنjashncelebrationبگیریدbegirid!IMP-take-you.PL!جشن بگیریدjashn begirid!celebration IMP-take-you.PL'celebrate!
An exception to this is the passive voice, in which both English and Japanese modify the main verb: start to be read and 読まれ始める yomarehajimeru lit.
For example, the Sino-Japanese verb "to love" (愛する, ai suru) itself can be modified, as in "to try loving" (愛してみる, ai shitemiru), but it does not combine with another verb as its second or modifying element.
Under the influence of a Kichwa substrate, speakers living in the Ecuadorian Altiplano have innovated compound verbs in Spanish.
'(n Kichwa: huañuchi-shpa shitashun)In conformity with the SVO language word order of Spanish, the vector precedes the main verb while in SOV language Kichwa, the vector follows the main verb.
Consider the following pairs in which the first is an Israeli Hebrew compound verb and the last is a Classical Hebrew synthetic form:[5] According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the Israeli V+N compound verb is employed here for the desire to express swift action, and stems from Yiddish.
[6] As languages change, the vector or light verb may retain its original meaning or it may undergo different degrees of bleaching, part of the process of grammaticalization.
On the other hand, the Japanese "begin" はじめる (hajimeru) retains a good deal of its independent word meaning even in the compound.
Contrast this with the grammaticalization of "put away"しまう (shimau), as in 愛してしまった ai shite shimatta ("I mistakenly fell in love").
A deeper degree of grammaticalization may lead to phonological changes, too - usually some kind of shortening: 愛しちゃった ai shi chatta ("Damned if I didn't fall in love!")
Sanford Steever has shown the same phenomenon has a role in the emergence of the ditransitive paradigm in Dravidian.