Serial Verb Construction

Overview

A serial verb construction (SVC) is a linguistic phenomenon where two or more verbs or verb phrases appear in a single clause, sharing the same subject and tense, without explicit conjunctions or complementizers.

Key Concepts

SVCs allow for the expression of complex events or sequences of actions within a single grammatical unit. They are common in many West African and Southeast Asian languages.

Types of SVCs

• Sequential SVCs: Verbs describe actions occurring in temporal sequence.
• Reason SVCs: One verb expresses the reason for the action of another.
• Manner SVCs: Describe the manner in which an action is performed.
• Resultative SVCs: The second verb indicates the result of the first verb’s action.

Deep Dive

The analysis of SVCs often involves determining the semantic relationship between the verbs. Linguists debate whether SVCs represent a single complex predicate or multiple coordinated predicates.

Consider the Yoruba example: Ọkùnrin náà lọ sí ìgbè. (The man went to the bush.) Here, ‘lọ’ (go) and ‘sí’ (to) function together.

Applications

Understanding SVCs is crucial for language acquisition, computational linguistics (parsing and machine translation), and comparative typology.

Challenges & Misconceptions

A common misconception is that SVCs are simply verb coordination. However, the lack of conjunctions and shared grammatical properties distinguish them. Analyzing their internal structure and semantic scope can be challenging.

FAQs

What is the primary characteristic of an SVC?
Multiple verbs in one clause, sharing a subject and tense, without conjunctions.

Are SVCs found in English?
While not as prominent as in other languages, some constructions like “He ran out the door” can be analyzed as related phenomena.