Some multiword verbs like run into ‘encounter’ in She ran into a friend have been called by two distinct names in the literature. They are prepositional verbs (with a fixed and specified preposition) or (inseparable or nonseparable) transitive phrasal verbs. This paper argues that this different use of terminology for the same multiword verbs actually reveals the nature of the whole class they belong to. The class is a cline of grammatical elements and properties between prepositional verbs and transitive phrasal verbs, and the set shared by these two subclasses is the locus of that cline. This characteristic mode of the cline is explained in terms of intersective constructional gradience and multiple inheritance.

The paper aims to explore the class of the English light verb give, as in She gave a sigh. Drawing on the standard and novel arguments and evidence, it is argued that the class is internally complex, assuming a structured cline. This cline is primarily divided into so-called true light verb and vague action verb types, each of which is further separated into two subtypes. These are GIVE A SIGH, GIVE X A KISS, GIVE X ADVICE, and GIVE X A DESCRIPTION (OF Y). The paper also offers a supplementary analysis of the two subtypes of the vague action verb, using the hybrid model of lexical conceptual structure and syntactic argument structure.