Light/Vector Verbs & Cognate/Effective Objects

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 241n):

Jespersen (1942: 117) called verbs in such [Process + Scope] constructions ‘light verbs’, and this term is often used in the contemporary literature on English and also on other languages (e.g. Butt, 2003) – another term being ‘vector verb’. The Scope element in examples such as the candidate dances three dances, Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep, with an Amateur or Professional partner was traditionally recognised as a ‘cognate object’. Poutsma (1926) had noticed constructions with (in our terms) Process + Scope, characterising the verb realising the Process as having ‘vague meaning’ and calling the Scope an ‘effective object’; he analysed such configurations as ‘intransitive’.