Edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 11] 2008
► pp. 103–120
Verb serialization is generally defined as a linguistic device by means of which two or more verbs or verb phrases are juxtaposed without any linker. The output of verb serialization is called “serial verb construction”, henceforth SVC. This paper aims to (1) examine the characteristics of events expressed by SVCs, (2) analyze the relationships between serial verbs, and (3) investigate constraints on the serializability of verbs. This paper limits its scope to basic nongrammaticalized SVCs in Thai, which consist of two verb phrases only. It is argued that (i) each SVC expresses a single whole, complex event, and (ii) verbs do not serialize freely. This paper accounts for the serializability of verbs by analyzing semantic relationships between verbs in SVCs.