La plupart des articles de ce numéro de Neophilologica sont consacrés aux verbes supports. C’était l’idée de Gaston Gross, président honoraire de la revue, de faire, dans le numéro en cours, état de la situation théorique, descriptive et applicative des verbes supports. Gaston Gross, éminent linguiste, est aussi une figure dominante
des études sur les verbes supports. De nombreuses observations et concepts que nous considérons comme acquis dans ce domaine remontent à ses travaux fondamentaux.

Like all the major fields of research, the theoretical positions on support verbs have changed as descriptions of them have accumulated. It is surprising that it was not until the twentieth century that the notion was established. Thus, to take a beer and to take a slap have been analyzed in the same way in the grammatical tradition. I have described elsewhere how the notion of support verbs was elaborated and gradually developed (G. Gross 1993, 2004). The first works in the framework of the LADL started from lists of nominal predicates established by Maurice Gross. His first collaborators applied to these lists, each one on his own, this or that support verb, the number of which seemed to be quite small at the time. Thus, J. Giry studied the support faire; L. Danlos studied sentences with the support être Prép. From the very beginning, it was realized that the conjugation of nominal predicates was more diverse than that of verbs: a single verb has only one set of forms. R. Vivès studied the nominal predicates that take the three supports avoir-prendre-perdre. I myself have described the support verbs donner and recevoir by highlighting an active and passive conjugation thanks to the support recevoir. But all these works implied, by default, that the list of support verbs was reduced for each of the predicate nouns and for the whole. But, just as in the last century a systematic inventory of verbal conjugation was made, the time has come to make a systematic inventory of the means of conjugation for nominal predicates. This is what the present article is devoted to.

The paper proposes a formal definition of support verb as (roughly) a semantically empty verb serving as a syntactic “prop” to a predicative noun such that the phrase V(support)(N) + N is synonymous with the verb V0 derived form N: ‘V(support)(N) + N’ = ‘V0(N)’, as in ‘to give an order’ = ‘to order’ or ‘to receive an order’ = ‘to be ordered’. The following points are discussed: support verbs as collocates, representation of support verbs in terms of lexical functions, semantic and syntactic properties of support verbs, semantic additions to support verbs (in particular, causation and phasic meanings), realization verbs, and the role of support verbs in theoretical and applied linguistics.

It is a long-acknowledged fact that in a wide number of Indo-European languages, some noun phrases occur solely in the plural. As for the French language — the only one concerned in this study — examples as les semailles, les pourparlers, les environs, les pantalons, etc., are very common ones. A subclass of these plural invariable nouns (Pluralia tantum), shows specific properties, e.g., the noun phrase does not behave like a collective noun; it differs in meaning from the version in singular, and the version in plural is always diachronically posterior to the one in singular. The main point is that these plural nouns seem to involve a limited class of verbs in a privileged way. The main purpose of this study is then to question the status of support verb of these verbs, as well as their role in a possible process of idiomatization.

To understand natural language, automatic systems must have the ability and possibility to know what is inferred, and if so, how it is inferred, and from what in a text. The linguistically determined implications imposed by a predicate on its propositional arguments, appearing in a text as textual inferences, are, with other elements, such as knowledge of the world, speakers’ assumptions about language usage, situational stereotypes, implicatures, etc., one of the necessary elements for a system to be considered as understanding natural language. 

In this paper, Wiesław Banyś focuses on an important part of textual inferences, one which has been given hardly any scholarly attention so far, namely the relations between a particular category of textual inferences constituted by phrasal implicatives in the sense of Karttunen (2012) and a particular category of multi-word expressions constituted by support verbs. 

Banyś first gives a brief introduction to the current state of the art of the description of the two general categories: inferences, including a particular type of inferences: paraphrases (sec. 1), and multiword expressions with a particular type of these constructions: support verbs (sec. 2), which allows us to present the relations between support verbs and paraphrases (sec. 3). He then moves on to a discussion of implicatives, including phrasal implicatives (sec. 4), and presents a sketch of the description of some types of support verb constructions from the point of view of their implicative power (sec. 5). 

The analyses of the type presented are to be continued and need to be extended to all constructions of the type analysed and are at the same time part of a much more general project. They constitute the beginning of a systematic implementation to be done on French and Polish material, in correlation with the English, of the combinatorics of truth values, “implicative signatures”, of predicates, whether verbal, adjectival or nominal.

This contribution applies the classical model of French “light verbs” to a highly abstract lexical sphere — “shell nouns” such as opinion and information — which has been neglected by research so far. This study focuses on combinations between these nouns and the verbs être and avoir, which have been subject to diachronic variation that can be traced back to medieval times in the Frantext corpora. The findings suggest that the combinatorics of today’s words often reflects a categorization of the world corresponding to yesterday’s imagination.

Light verb constructions (LVCs) permeate the oral and written productions of native (and non-native) speakers of typologically different languages (e.g., Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan languages, among others). From a cross-linguistic perspective, LVCs share basic combinatory and predicative features. However, semantic and morphosyntactic contrasts are visible even in closely related languages such as Spanish and Italian. Therefore, this paper aims to show some of the most significant asymmetries existing between Peninsular Spanish light verb constructions and their equivalent forms in Italian. The ultimate goal of this research is to highlight some of the systematic contrasts that affect specific semantic classes.

Light verbs are generally considered on semantic grounds: Light verbs are contrasted with predicative verbs because the former lack argument structure. In this paper, I argue that light verbs should rather be considered on syntactic grounds, i.e., in terms of the structure of the sentence. From this point of view, light verbs highlight the central property of verbs tout court: namely, to construct a VP. In § 1, I argue that only on this basis can light and predicative verbs be consistently contrasted. In §§ 2 and 3, I address the question of the structure of a VP with a light verb. In § 4, I address the question of the relationship between argument structure and semantic richness.

In this paper, I analyse the noun forms derived from the prototypical verbs of visual perception, see and look. The descriptors used to process verbal polysemy must prepare the correspondence between verb classes and noun classes. This involves indicating whether perception verbs have nouns as associated forms. I also show that if the predicates and arguments are fundamental for the interpretation of the sentence, the actualizers are fundamental for its grammaticalization. The actualization will condition the reading of the nominal predicate. I show how this actualization will allow us to elaborate classes of predicates and thus to renew the approaches of polysemy.

This article is a contribution to the research on noun predication in Polish. More specifically, it focusses on the role of the support verb (Vsup) in verb-noun constructions. In this type of structure, also called verb-noun collocation, or conventionalized syntagma, the verb is collocated with an abstract noun. In this paper, Grażyna Vetulani discusses some crucial aspects of the role of the Vsup in Polish. Despite its apparently subordinated non-predicative role, the Vsup brings important semantical and grammatical information to the meaning of the whole syntagma. In particular, Vetulani argues that, it is a unifying element for the class of predicative nouns (Npréd); it indicates the register and aspect of the compound; it determines its class in the set of predicative nouns; it restricts the polysemy of the predicative noun.

Support verbs (verbes supports) and other realizers of the predicative noun comparison are the subject of this study. We submit to analysis the constructions prevalent in academic texts. The proposed analyses refer to the research on the realization of the predicate noun and are in line with the current research on the lexical-syntactic structures specific to the genre.

This paper presents a contrastive French-Polish semantic and syntactic analysis of nominal constructions with support verbs. The research is directly inspired by Gaston Gross’s book Systematic description of support verbs (forthcoming). What has been studied in particular is the French support verbs of the object class <attack> in order to find their Polish equivalents. Such an analysis reveals two major difficulties: at times, the lack of equivalent nominal construction in Polish, and often, the lower number of support verbs in Polish compared to French, which renders Polish as being a less “rich” language, that is, more semantically generalizing one. The search for adequate support verbs in Polish requires an in-depth semantic analysis to grasp the differences in meaning and usage. To do this, the methodology of grammar based on combinatorial semantics has been applied aided by a study of aspectual senses and phraseology linked to support verbs in both the languages.

The article aims to analyze the demetaphorization process in translation in the context of contemporary Italian literature. The problem is framed from the point of view of the focal adjustments of R. Langacker, in particular the selection and the figure-background alignment. Apart from the obvious problems of untranslatability, the role of the metaphorical potential played in the demetaphorization process is analyzed.

The aim of the article is to present the origins of regional diversity of Brazilian Portuguese. The paper defines diatopic variation and describes the influence of other languages on Brazilian Portuguese over the years, especially at the phonetic and lexical levels. The analyzed languages are: European Portuguese (the language of the colonizer), South American indigenous languages, African languages, the Arabic language, as well as European languages (Dutch, French, Italian, German and Spanish).

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the functioning of the lexeme fear [strakh] in the text of the Scriptures in the sphere of sacrum—profanum; the authors have described the method of research of emotional vocabulary in the linguistic aspect. The semantics of the mentioned word in a profane expression has been considered and based on the method of dictionary definition, etymological, contextual and conceptual analyses, and a complex approach. The authors have traced the understanding of fear in the sacral manifestation (fear of God), relying on the divine nature of this occurrence, which goes beyond the natural understanding of the studied phenomenon. The fear of God in the Bible should be considered as blahohovinnia [awe], which has three levels of manifestation: initial: it arises as gratitude to God for forgiven sins and leads a person to awe before the Lord and helps to salve his soul. A higher level is the feeling of blahohovinnia which resides in a person when they stand before God and is ready to obey Him in everything. The highest level of awe is the concept of absolute service to God when there is no fear but only love.
The source language clearly distinguishes the concept of natural fear and supernatural fear, whose linguistic signs are separate lexemes, whereas in the Ukrainian language (as well as in Ukrainian translations of Scripture) the expression of these meanings occurs with the help of lexemes strakh [fear], bohobiynyi [God-fearing], pobozhnyi [pious], boyatysia [to fear], shanuvaty [to honour] that does not correlate with the primary source.

The paper deals with Dontsov’s “phraseological speech” in the framework of cognitive linguistics. The ways of creating partially-authorial (biblical) and authorial (anthropocentric) phraseologisms are discussed and their assignment to different phraseological-semantic microfields is suggested. A number of Dontsov’s phraseologisms are viewed as linguomental pictures of the world that are potentially acceptable for a wider use.
Methodologically, the research presents a cluster of general scholarly methods and those used in cognitive linguistics as well as special approaches developed in modern anthropocentric research. Methods of cognitive linguistics are of the utmost importance and include categorizing the phenomena of the objective reality and the interdisciplinary method of interpretation related to the correlation of language data with cultural studies, political science, ethnopsychology and other disciplines. Semantic and contextual analyses are also used as supplementary methods. The potential value of the research is ensured by its contribution to the modern anthropocentric linguistics that aims at studying language through its speaker.
Structural-and-logical scheme illustrating the cognitive stages of generating a phraseologism is suggested and the importance of categorization of lingual phenomena is emphasized. Dontsov’s phraseologisms are claimed to be means of exposure of the national Ukrainian lingual picture, symbols of the national worldview, and the prism of the world perception and understanding.

Using the tools of rhetoric and critical discourse analysis, the paper describes the discourse of slimming diets in the Italian men’s magazine “For Men”. The study covered 49 monthly issues published in 2013—2022. The research has shown the presence of numerous persuasive techniques based on building the credibility of theses presented to the readers (mostly using the argument of authority). There are numerous references to popular topoi that increase the competitiveness of the proposed nutritional regimes. Some techniques influencing the emotions of readers were used to a lesser extent. The discourse of diets is present in every issue of the magazine under study, and much space is devoted to it, creating the impression that it is an important and interesting topic for contemporary Italian readers (permanent columns present). In addition, phenomena such as scientization and medicalization of nutrition, fragmentation of the male body were observed. Many of the examples cited could be found in the Italian women’s press published about 15 years ago.

Natural languages differ not only in lexis, but also, or perhaps above all, in grammar. The importance of certain grammatical forms or their frequency of use can vary among languages. There are languages that use them or describe them differently.
In the contemporary Polish grammar we will not find information about the subjunctive mood. However, when comparing it with other languages, such as Italian, we will notice certain analogies and phenomena in Polish which are not formally described, and yet they resemble the subjunctive. Nonetheless, a researcher, who will consult older studies, may discover that the description of the Polish grammar changed quite significantly and may be able to find some new insights.
This text is an attempt to show that, despite the lack of a formal description, Polish uses the subjunctive, by confronting it with Italian language.

The aim of this article is to examine the difficulties faced by any analysis of lexical meaning. This study concerns the French noun journal and the diversity of interpretative effects. Magdalena Perz investigates different approaches adopted by linguists — notion of lexical facets, dense metonymy when analysing semantic complexity of certain words. The problems of word senses and word sense description are vividly discussed, yet there are still many questions, such as relations between linguistics forms and extralinguistic reality to be answered in this field of research. The major problem arising from polysemy is the precise distinction between polysemy, metonymy and various theoretical tools developed in the field of lexical semantics.

Metaphor, although by many still associated exclusively with poetic and artistic language, is a ubiquitous phenomenon. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), it plays a key role in understanding of the world. Metaphors, the use of which we often do not realise, also facilitate everyday communication. 
The aim of this research is to answer the question: in what way metaphors change in the process of translation? The analysis covers selected examples of metaphorical expressions taken from the original novel by Aldous Huxley “A Brave New World” in English, and its translations in Italian and in Polish. The comparison of the three language versions is intended to show similarities and differences both on the lexical and cognitive levels, as well as to identify the translation techniques used.

In this article, Beata Śmigielska describes the questions used to determine the number and nature of arguments of predicates within the framework of Stanisław Karolak’s semantics-based grammar. Since syntactic structures do not directly reflect the semantic structures of predicates, the distinction between arguments and adjunct elements (modifiers) often becomes problematic. This fact is related to the lack of a single methodology by which this can be done in a simple and unambiguous way, resulting in different results of analyses of the same predicates. To solve this problem, it is necessary clearly to define the theory within which we work, because it is the adopted perspective and its well-defined principles that will decide both the path of thought during the research and its results. In her analyses of the selected predicates, Śmigielska defines the tools that can be used in predicate description such as the semantic decomposition of predicates into simpler elements, supplemented, where necessary, by contradiction tests and paraphrasing.