Light verb

Light verb is thematically incomplete verb which only in combination with a predicative complement qualifies as a predicate.

Example
the Japanese verb suru in (i)a case-marks but does not theta-mark the complement NP hanashi which in its turn theta-marks John and Mary. As shown by the contrast with (i)b, the verb suru only contributes the past tense (shita = suru + past) and the case-marking (-o) of the complement.

(i) a John-wa	 	Mary-ni	hanashi-o	shita John-topic 	Mary-to	talk-Acc	suru-past 'John talked to Mary' b John-no		Mary-e-no		hanashi John-Gen		Mary-to-Gen		talk

Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics