Serial Verbs and Complex Paths in Klallam

2001

This paper describes a close look at the distribution in constructions of the closed class of complex predicate forming stems in Klallam traditionally called 'auxiliaries.'

International Journal for Arabic Linguistics and Literature Studies, 2021

This paper aims to discuss serial verb constructions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It argues against the claim that this structure does not exist in MSA. We examined parallel structures in this paper: being verbs and what is called albadal ‘apposition’ in the traditional grammar of the Arabic language. This paper argues that the first structure should be analyzed as an auxiliary structure that contains two clauses, while the second structure should be analyzed as a serial verb structure as it denotes, among others, a complex situation, shares the same subject, and contains one clause. Finally, this paper provides a brief syntactic analysis for being verbs and serial verbs in MSA within the lexical functional grammar (LFG) framework, showing the differences between the two structures.

PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 2018

Barayin is an East Chadic language spoken by around 5000 people in the Guera region of the Republic of Chad. This dissertation examines a particular type of syntactic construction in the language, serial verb constructions, from the perspectives of typological (or comparative) syntax, descriptive grammar, and the formal syntactic theory of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). Typologically, serial verb constructions are problematic because they represent a heterogeneous set of multiverb constructions that have features that do not fit into traditional syntactic categories like subordination, conjunction and adjunction. Part A of this dissertation describes these problematic features in detail, providing a succinct overview of the literature which can serve as a resource for field linguists describing similar constructions. Part B of the dissertation gives a detailed description of the morphology, syntax and semantics of serial verb constructions in Barayin. These chapters contribute to our knowledge of the world’s languages by documenting a complex syntactic phenomenon in an area of the world where most of the languages are significantly understudied. The most common type of SVC in Barayin involves a deictic motion verb. The motion is normally (but not always) understood to take place prior to the activity or state predicated by the main verb. The formal analysis of Barayin SVCs in Lexical-Functional Grammar in Part C uses recent developments in the theory to show how argument sharing in SVCs can be represented in a connected s-structure that conforms to the standard mechanisms of LFG. The approach is compared to two previous analyses of complex motion predicates in other languages which appeal to a non-standard formal mechanism to model complex predicates.

Studia Linguistica, 1997

This article addresses the issue of overt and covert V-movement in Standard Arabic within the minimalist framework. We will demonstrate that overt steps of this process do not go beyond Agrs, the only exception being positive imperatives, where C is also affected. This entails that VSO order in VSO languages such as Standard Arabic is not an outcome of overt V-to-C, as sometimes claimed in the literature. As for covert V-movement, we will focus especially on its application from Agrs to Mood, and show that in this case it may skip an intervening negative head not selecting a MoodP.

International Journal of Linguistics Studies

This paper examines the elements of abstract motion as represented by coextension path expressions and access path expressions. The elements include Path, Manner, Duration, and Mover. It does so by comparing English and Arabic languages with the purpose of building a model for abstract motion in Arabic and of performing a comparative analysis of the linguistic representation of abstract motion in the two languages under consideration. The study found that the two types of abstract motion under consideration differ in how they express the four components of motion, namely, path, manner, duration, and mover. They also differ in the degree of specificity of each component and in perspective. Moreover, this paper attempted to draw a comparison between English and Arabic expression of abstract motion and found out that abstract motion represented by access and coextension path expressions exist in both languages in parallel ways except for some slight differences on the grammatical and s...

International journal of linguistics, literature and translation, 2020

This paper examines some semantics aspects of Arabic motion verbs compared to their English counterparts. Although both languages belong to different remote families, both languages share some common features about Motion especially on the idea of locomotors vs. non-locomotors (translative and non-translative movement). A lexically-semantic comparison is drawn between motion verbs in both languages in terms of suggested semantic components such as Motion itself, Manner, Directionality, Path, Fictive, and Motion. The researchers used resources such as encyclopedias, library references books specially Mu'jam Lisan AL-Arab, Al-Mu'jam Al-Waseet, English dictionaries specially Oxford, Webster, and Longman, web sites to collect data of motion verbs under discussion. The paper concludes that the semantics components of Arabic verbs are quite similar to their English counterparts, but Arabic verbs differ greatly from English verbs in the notions that can be lexicalized.

2013

In this dissertation, I present a corpus-based, constructionist account of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) GO verbs (ḏahaba, maḍā, and rāḥa) and COME verbs (atā, ḥaḍara, ǧā'a, and qadima). These seven deictic motion verbs count among the most frequent lexical items in MSA, nevertheless, they are poorly described in contemporary dictionaries, which renders the task of differentiating the use of each verb rather daunting for the learner and the linguist alike.

Linguistik Indonesia

The title of this study is the syntactic behavior of the second verb (V2) in the Balinese serial verbs and it aims at investigating the types of verbs composing the Balinese serial verbs and analyzing the syntactic behavior of the V2. The theory applied in identifying the Balinese serial verbs is the theory of typology by Van Staden and Ger Reesink (Senft, ed., 2008), and the theory of complement and adjunct by Kroeger (2005) is used in analyzing the syntactic behavior of the V2. This research is classified as a descriptive-qualitative study. The data supporting the analysis was collected from written Balinese texts in the Balinese short stories. The result of the analysis showed that the Balinese serial verbs were formed by V1 stative-V2 intransitive, V1 intransitive -V2 stative, V1 intransitive -V2 transitive active, V1 active transitive -V2 active-transitive, or stative or intransitive, passive-active-transitive, active transitive-passive, passive-passive. Syntactically the V2 co...