A structural approach to the analysis of the possessive idiom have got

Abstract

This paper gives a structural description of English predicate structures, focusing on discussing characteristics of the verb have. More specifically the paper concentrates on the possessive idiom have got, summarising descriptive generalisations from English grammar textbooks and manuals. Using also some data from the British National Corpus the paper demonstrates that the idiom have got has a rather restricted paradigm and is productively used only in a very limited number of semantic and syntactic contexts. Such restrictions are the result of more general characteristics of the structure proposed for have got. Describing the dislocation of the elements of the complex idiom, two main factors are considered in more detail: the Case assigning ability of the English verb and the semantic feature [+Activity]. The data prove that the position of an element in a syntactic structure predicts its formal (morphological and syntactic) properties as well as its interpretation.