Light Verbs For Intermediate learners

Understand light verbs like 'take' in 'take a nap'. This lesson includes practical examples and exercises for easy learning.

"Light Verbs" in English Grammar

What Are Light Verbs?

Light Verbs (also known as delexical verbs) are common verbs like 'go', 'make', or 'take' that have no meaning by themselves and take their meanings from the nouns they are accompanied with.

English Light Verbs

Although we use light verbs very often in both everyday conversations and academic or formal situations, the number of these verbs is limited.
Here is the list of English light verbs:

2.

Take

3.

Make

4.

Give

5.

Go

6.

Do

Have

'Have' as the main verb means possession. But, as a light verb, it can commonly appear with these nouns:

Have breakfast

Have a drink

Have a break

Have an argument

Have a conversation

Take

'Take' as a light or delexical verb can also be used with many nouns, such as:

Take a shower

Take a risk

Take care

Take a break

Take a photo

Make

We can use 'make' as a light verb with the following nouns:

Make a mistake

Make a decision

Make a phone call

Make an attempt

Make a mess

Give

We can also use 'give' as a light verb with the following nouns:

Give a hug

Give a shout

Give directions

Give evidence

Give orders

Go

'Go' as a light verb can be used with certain gerunds (-ing forms):

Go shopping

Go swimming

Go skiing

Go dancing

Go running

Do

Like 'go', 'do' can also be used with certain nouns or gerunds (-ing forms):

Do the dishes

Do the laundry

Do the ironing

Do the cooking

Do ones hair

Comments

(0)
Loading Recaptcha...
Share on :
books
Learn English VocabularyStart learning categorized English vocabulary on Langeek.
Click to start

Recommended

Regular and Irregular Verbs

bookmark
Based on how we conjugate verbs in the past simple and the past participle, they can be divided into two types: Regular verbs and Irregular verbs.

Actions and States

bookmark
'I'm loving it!' or 'I love it!' Do you want to know which one of these famous advertisement mottos are correct? You got to learn about state and action verbs!

Auxiliary Verbs

bookmark
Auxiliary verbs help the main verb to express tense or voice or help make questions and negative sentences. That's why they're also called 'helping verbs'.

Transitivity

bookmark
'She smiled beautifully'. 'She started a rumor'. One of these sentences has an intransitive verb and one has a transitive one. Want to know the difference?

Intransitive Verbs

bookmark
Some verbs do not need any complements to express a complete meaning. They show what the subject is doing without identifying a receiver for the action.

Mono-transitive Verbs

bookmark
Mono-transitive verbs are a group of verbs that take a single verb complement, and show that the subject is performing the action of the verb on the complement.
LanGeek
Download LanGeek app