A very large and productive class of verbs in Neo-Mandaic consists of a verbal element and a non-verbal element, which form a single semantic and syntactic unit. The non-verbal element is most often a noun such as "əwɔdɔ" ‘deed’ in the compound "əwɔdɔ əwad" ~ "əwod" ("ɔwed") ‘to work or to do something,’ or an adjective such as "həyɔnɔ" ‘alive’ in the compound "həyɔnɔ tammɔ" ‘to survive,’ although prepositions such as "qɔr" ‘at,’ in the compound "qɔr tammɔ" ‘to be born to s.o.,’ are attested. In many of these compounds, the verbal element is a "light" verb, which serves only to indicate verbal inflections such as person, tense, mood, and aspect; the meaning of these compounds is primarily derived from the non-verbal element, which always precedes the verbal element. The most common light verbs are "əwad" ~ "əwod" ("ɔwed") ‘to do,’ "əhaw" ~ "əhow" ("ɔhew") ‘to give,’ "məhɔ" ~ "məhi" ("mɔhi") ‘to hit,’ and "tammɔ" ‘to become.’ Although phrasal verbs similar to these are attested in Classical Mandaic, most Neo-Mandaic phrasal verbs are calqued upon Persian phrasal verbs, and many non-verbal elements are Persian or Arabic loan words.