Abstract
We contrast the historical data with respect to light verbs and auxiliaries in Indo-Aryan and show that light verbs are comparatively stable and unlikely to be subject to reanalysis or restructuring. We propose that there is a very tight connection between a light verb and its corresponding main verb, and that this connection differs markedly from the relationship an auxiliary bears to the main verb it is derived from. In particular, we depart from the received view that the existence of a light verb is due to a historical process of semantic bleaching. We instead propose that synchronically there is a single underlying lexical entry which tightly binds light verbs to their corresponding main verb. This proposal accounts not only for the simultaneous synchronic uses of light and main verbs, but also for the historical data.
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