Multi-verb Constructions and Coordination

Serial verb constructions: A cross-linguistic typology, 2005

* We would like to thank Kofi Busia Abrefa for carefully reading through this article. We also thank Clement Appah and Yankson Solace Ago for their help with Akan. The above named are graduate students in the Linguistics Department at NTNU. This paper was presented at the TROSS Workshop on Multi-Verb Constructions, NTNU, June 2003, and is a development of Hellan et al. 2003, in turn based on the presentation Andenes et al. (2002), in Legon, Accra, in November 2002. We are grateful for comments from participants in both audiences. Mistakes are the authors' responsibility alone. The paper is first published, in essentially the same form as here, as Hellan et al. (2003a), in the proceedings from the Legon conference; see Dakubu, M.E., and K. Osam (eds, 2003). We are grateful to the editors for consenting to the inclusion of the present paper also in the present on-line proceedings. 1 Akan is a Niger-Congo language of the Kwa group, spoken mainly in Ghana. 2 In Christaller's terminology, these are, respectively, 'accidental' and 'essential' combinations. 3 Osam (op.cit.) in turn recognizes two main subtypes of ISVCs, those which are essentially compositional in their semantics, and those of a more idiomatic nature. Our focus here is exclusively on the former kind. 4 Compared with LFG, which has a research tradition in the investigation of complex predicates (see, for instance, papers in Alsina et al. (1997)), relatively little work on this topic has been done using HPSG. An example of treatments of SVCs in this framework is Muansuwan 2002 (for Thai), and also Sahoo 2001 (for Oriya). A third distinction between coordinated structures and CCs lies in the interpretation of the temporal sequence introduced by the verbal chain. While the sequence of events rendered through clause chaining, as in (3a), can only be interpreted as non-overlapping (that is, Ama first cooks and then eats), and a non-overlapping interpretation is generally enforced also in coordination structures (such as in (3b)), there is at least one distribution of aspectual affixes whereby a reading of simultaneity can be introduced in a coordinate structure, namely (in (3c)), but not in a CC (cf. (3d)). Here both conjuncts are marked with the progressive marker re-, and the reading is 'Ama eats while she cooks'. In CCs an initial PROG marker will have to be followed by a CONS marker on the second verb (see further in section 1.2 below), and the interpretation can only be that of consecutive events. 8 (3) a. Ama noa di. Ama cook eat 'Ama cooks and (then) eats' b. Ama noa na-di. Ama cook and eat. 'Ama cooks and (then) eats' c. Ama re-noa na re-di. Ama PROG-cook and PROG-eat. 'Ama eats (a little) while cooking' d. Ama re-noa a-di. Ama PROG-cook CONS-eat. 'Ama is cooking and (then) eating' We conclude that clause chaining expresses strict temporal sequencing, that is, non-overlapping interpretation of the chain of events, and, bearing the contrast between (3c) and (3d) in mind, this also shows a contrast between the two construction types.

In this dissertation a methodology for identifying and analyzing serial verb constructions (SVCs) is developed, and its application is exemplified through an analysis of SVCs in Koro, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. SVCs involve two main verbs that form a single predicate and share at least one of their arguments. In addition, they have shared values for tense, aspect, and mood, and they denote a single event. The unique syntactic and semantic properties of SVCs present a number of theoretical challenges, and thus they have invited great interest from syntacticians and typologists alike. But characterizing the nature of SVCs and making generalizations about the typology of serializing languages has proven difficult. There is still debate about both the surface properties of SVCs and their underlying syntactic structure. The current work addresses some of these issues by approaching serialization from two angles: the typological and the language-specific. On the typological front, it refines the definition of `SVC' and develops a principled set of cross-linguistically applicable diagnostics. From the existing set of surface properties, four core characteristics are distilled: main verbhood, monoclausality, single eventhood, and argument sharing. A construction must have all of these properties in order to qualify as an SVC. Once these underlying semantic and syntactic properties of SVCs are identified, a detailed and explicit set of criteria is developed that allows these underlying properties to be tested in any language. The latter part of the dissertation offers a case study in the use of these diagnostic criteria by applying them to multi-verb constructions in Koro. Testing these constructions against the definition of SVCs developed in the dissertation reveals that although there are numerous multi-verb constructions in Koro that appear to fulfill the surface criteria for SVCs, only one of these can be considered a true SVC. This construction has a VP-shell structure, in which V1 is a path or locative verb that takes V2 as its complement. The shared argument is the subject of V2, providing a counter-example to Baker's (1989) claim that SVCs obligatorily share an internal argument. Constructions that instead involve adjunction of V2 to V1 are shown through detailed semantic investigation to be disqualified as SVCs, because they do not exhibit the expected entailments. This is surprising because they superficially resemble proto-typical SVCs. The syntactic and semantic analysis of these constructions leads to the hypothesis that true SVCs must have a relation of complementation between the verbs, while adjoined or coordinated constructions cannot be considered SVCs.

Since the 1970s, serial verb constructions (SVCs) have been discussed widely in African, Oceanic and many other languages in different parts of the world. This paper gives an overview of the most important generalizations about serial verb constructions that have been proposed and that do seem to hold if a sufficiently restrictive definition of the concept is adopted. The main problem of the earlier comparative literature is that the notion of a SVC has not been delimited clearly, and/or has been formulated in much too wide terms. This can be seen as a result of the confusion between comparative concepts and natural kinds: Serial verb constructions have (most often implicitly) been regarded as natural kinds (universal categories), so that phenomena in additional languages were regarded as SVCs even when they had somewhat different properties. This procedure inevitably leads to a fuzzy and very broad understanding of the concept, with a prototype structure that does not allow falsifiable claims. Here I propose a narrow definition of SVC and formulate ten universals that are apparently true of all serial verb constructions in this narrow sense.

ICSNL 56 / UBCWPL, 2021

This paper explores multi-verb constructions (MVCs) in Hul'q'umi'num', the Island dialect of Halkomelem Salish. Hul'q'umi'num' exhibits at least three MVC types: auxiliary verb constructions (AVCs), serial verb constructions (SVCs), and verb chain constructions (VCCs). All three consist of two or more verbs and lack any linking element between the verb components. The verb components in AVCs and SVCs must share a subject argument, while component verbs of a VCC need not share. In SVCs and VCCs, a shared subject NP may occur after the first verbal element, but a subject NP may not occur immediately after an auxiliary verb. Typologically, SVC component verbs must match in terms of clausal categories (e.g. tense and aspect), while transitivity matching of verb components is language-specific (cf. Aikhenvald 2018). Hul'q'umi'num' SVCs exhibit the expected aspect matching but do not require transitivity matching. Constructions with mismatched component verb aspect are categorized here as VCCs.

Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 2023

Serial verb constructions (SVCs), that is sequences of several consecutive verbs sharing certain features, form a well-established concept in descriptive and comparative syntax. However, there is no consensus concerning a systematic and universal definition of these constructions, leading authors like Bisang (2009) and Haspelmath (2016) to propose explicit criteria for their identification. Although Bantu languages are rarely described as containing SVCs, Tshiluba exhibits constructions that look suspiciously similar to them. This work therefore addresses two questions: (a) are these constructions SVCs in either Bisang's (2009) or Haspelmath's (2016) sense?; and (b) what are their key properties? Using various elicitation methods, I collected data indicating that these Tshiluba constructions conform to those definitions, and exhibit many properties which are usually associated with SVCs. Despite this evidence, further complications mean that these constructions remain ambiguous between serialization and asyndetic coordination, suggesting that we may be dealing with an ongoing shift between the two (Andrason 2018), although further empirical confirmation is needed.

2019

In serial verb constructions (SVCs), multiple independent lexical verbs are combined in a mono-clausal construction. SVCs express a range of grammatical meanings and are attested in numerous spoken languages all around the world. Yet, to date only few studies have investigated the existence and functions of SVCs in sign languages. For the most part, these studies-including a previous study on Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)-relied on elicited data. In this article, we offer a cross-modal typological contribution to the study of SVCs by investigating the phenomenon based on naturalistic corpus data from NGT. A search of the Corpus NGT yielded 41 mono-clausal utterances in which one of a closed set of verbs-namely GO, GIVE, TAKE, and CALL-combines with another lexical verb. While the combinations we found are in important respects reminiscent of SVCs described for spoken languages, our data also confirm the previous finding that the fixed verb in the SVC serves to express agreement (by means of spatial modulation) when the other verb cannot do so. In addition, we identified some novel uses of the verbs GO and GIVE: (i) GO functioning as a future tense marker and (ii) GIVE functioning as a light verb. We will also discuss aspects of the grammaticalization of SVCs in NGT: from lexical verb to light verb to auxiliary, again offering some comparison to grammaticalization paths described for spoken languages.

1990