The serial verb construction in Tujia
This paper presents a comprehensive description of the serial
verb construction (henceforth SVC) in Tujia. It shows that serial verbs or verb
phrases in Tujia are linked by the particle lie
55.
lie
55 does not contribute any semantic content
to the construction, but only functions as a linking particle.
lie
55 is not used for any other purpose in any
other structure. SVCs in Tujia can be classified into two types: non-symmetric
and symmetric, depending on argument sharing. Symmetric SVCs can be further
divided into three types according to how the arguments of the verb are shared:
those which share both agents and patients, those which share only agents and
those which do not share any arguments. SVCs in Tujia can be used to indicate
various types of semantic relations: most frequently this involves
sequentiality, but also action-result, cause-effect, and action-purpose. The use
of a linking particle in SVCs is rarely reported in the existing literature, so
that the present research contributes to the general typology of SVCs.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Some grammatical properties of Tujia
- 3.Identification of SVCs in Tujia
- 4.SVCs vs. adverbial constructions
- 5.Types of SVC and their semantic interpretation
- 5.1Symmetric SVCs
- i.Agent sharing, patient sharing: [S+O+V1+lie+V2]
- ii.Agent sharing, no patient sharing:
[S+O1+V1+lie+O2+V2]
- iii.No argument sharing: [S1+O1+V1+lie+S2+O2+V2]
- 5.2Non-symmetric SVCs
- 6.Semantic bleaching: From
a
55
lie
55 to
lie
55
- 7.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
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