[Corpora-List] BE, HAVE, and DO

[CRuehlemann at aol.com]

Thanks for this response. 
 
Biber et al. refer to the kind of usage you seem to be thinking of as  
'pro-verb' DO "substituting for some lexical verb" (Biber et al. 1999:  430). If 
I understand them correctly, they do not count pro-verb DO as an  auxiliary 
but avoid assigning to it lexical-verb status either. So, pro-verb DO  
might be indeed 'something else', as you put it.
 
Given that semantic bleaching and desemanticization are a common feature of 
 phraseology the binary distinction auxiliary verb/lexical verb is merely  
intitial anyway.
 
Best
Chris
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