The monograph focuses on a special type of collocations–Support, or Light, Verb Constructions (SVCs). SVCs consist of a semantically reduced verb together with a noun (as the direct object or embedded in a prepositional phrase) that conveys core lexical meaning to the combination. SVCs often vary cross-linguistically, with languages using different strategies to conceptualize the same denotative situations. This study in line with the principles of the Integrated Contrastive Model, aims firstly to offer a corpus-driven contrastive cognitive-semantic description of SVCs in Russian and Italian based on the Construction Grammar model; and secondly to conduct a Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis of the use of Russian SVCs by Italian-speaking students. The findings of this study, in addition to its theoretical significance, may be useful in teaching Russian as a foreign language and could be of interest for lexicography.

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The present study explores Italian-speaking learners’ knowledge of support (light) verb constructions. It involves an investigation of the deviations found in a learner corpus, the quantitative comparison of learners’ and native Russian speakers’ collocation production and an elicitation test. This study reveals deficiencies of learners’ collocational knowledge resulting in misuse, underuse or overuse of support verb constructions. To conceal these deficiencies, two strategies are used by learners: L1 transfer and avoidance.