Supporting Nouns

[Raffaele Simone]

Dear Colleagues,

Romance languages have various 'light' nouns (possibly taken from French) like French coup and prise in (for instance) 


on a donné un coup d'oil alentour  

on m'a fait une prise de sang


They seem to introduce an aspectual element into the NP and to do semantically what in other languages is done by dedicated affixes (Spanish -azo, Ital. -ata, Early French -ade). Modern Persian may have something similar. 
Does anyone know about other languages provided with such a subclass of Nouns? Does anyone know of studies on such a topic?
Thanks and best,

Raffaele Simone
University Roma Tre, Rome



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