What term refers to verbs that have little meaning on their own but can join with many other words to generate new meanings, sometimes called 'empty' verbs?

What term refers to verbs that have little meaning on their own but can join with many other words to generate new meanings, sometimes called 'empty' verbs?

• A. Delexicalised verbs
• B. Phrasal verbs
• C. Auxiliary verbs
• D. Modal verbs

Answer: (A)

Some verbs act mainly as a grammatical vehicle, carrying little independent meaning and letting the rest of the phrase supply the content. In linguistics, these are called delexicalised verbs (often described as “empty” verbs) because their core meaning fades when they combine with other words, and the overall sense comes from the surrounding noun, object, or modifier.

They readily pair with many different words to create a wide range of expressions, with the important meaning emerging from the complement rather than the verb itself. For example, phrases like do homework, make a decision, or take a break rely on the accompanying noun or phrase to carry the substantive meaning, while the verb provides the syntactic scaffold. That flexible, content-light role is why the term delexicalised verbs fits best.

Auxiliary verbs and modal verbs, by contrast, carry specific grammatical or modal meaning and are not characterized by a lack of inherent content. Phrasal verbs describe the broader phenomenon of a verb plus particle producing a new meaning, which is a different idea from the verb itself being semantically empty.