Abstract
Light-verb constructions (LVC) are verb-noun combinations with a single meaning, for example, zu Ende bringen and ins Gespräch kommen. The light verbs bringen and kommen may form LVC with the same nouns, in a way that the LVC with bringen in the passive voice and with kommen are synonyms. The aim of this article is to investigate the differences of meaning between these two synonym LVC that emerge from syntax through the conceptual metaphors CLOSENESS IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT and MORE OF FORM IS MORE OF CONTENT (LAKOFF; JOHNSON 198016 LAKOFF George, JOHNSON Mark. Metaphors we live by. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980.). In order to do so, we analyzed the data from Pereira’s master thesis (201719 PEREIRA Marina Sundfeld. Construções com os verbos-suporte bringen e kommen do alemão: significado ativo e passivo. 2017. 170 f. Dissertação de Mestrado. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo.), whose corpora were obtained from the Corpora Management and Analysis System (Cosmas II). We conclude that the subtle meaning differences between LVC formed with both verbs emerge from the abovementioned conceptual metaphors and that both of them allow the passive voice of bringen to carry more meaning than the LVC with kommen, in fact, the implicit agent. In addition, the LVC are influenced by the conceptual metaphors AN ACTION IS A LOCATION and AN ACTION IS AN OBJECT.
Keywords:
Conceptual metaphor theory; light-verb contructions; passive voice