Edited by Brian Nolan and Elke Diedrichsen
[Studies in Language Companion Series 180] 2017
► pp. 80–117
A survey of the relevant literature on serial verb constructions (SVCs) shows that the label ‘SVC’ is often used as an umbrella term that inappropriately encompasses various verb phrase sequences which are essentially different from traditional SVCs. The aim of this chapter is to highlight and discuss some syntactic and semantic characteristics of SVCs, which researchers have described over the years, within the syntax-semantics interface developed by the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) framework (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997; Van Valin 2005). The resulting analysis demonstrates that RRG provides a useful theoretical perspective able to embody the peculiarities of traditional SVCs, by distinguishing them from other multi-verb constructions that in the relevant literature are often classified as members of the SVC category.