Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions

Carol Lord

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This work examines both historical and comparative evidence in documenting the sweep of diachronic change in the context of serial verb constructions. Using a wide range of data from languages of West Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, it demonstrates how shifts in meaning and usage result in syntactic, morphological and lexical change. The process by which verbs lose lexical semantic content and develop case-marking functions is described; it is argued that the change is directional, from verb to preposition (or postposition) to affix, along a grammaticalization continuum. This same grammaticalization process is shown to result in the development of complementizers, adverbial subordinators, conjunctions, adverbs and auxiliaries from verbs. Strong parallels across languages are found in the meanings of the verbs that become “defective” and in the functions they come to mark. The changes are documented in detail, with examples from a number of languages illustrating the effect of the changes on typology and word order, implications for the encoding of definiteness and aspect, and the relevance of notions such as discourse topic, foreground and transitivity. With respect to theoretical assumptions and terminology, the author has taken a relatively nonpartisan approach, and the discussion is accessible to students of language as well as of interest to theoreticians.

[Typological Studies in Language, 26] 1993. x, 273 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 3 October 2011

https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.26

Table of Contents

Preface | p. ix

Serial Verbs | p. 1

Locative verbs and prepositions | p. 9

Verbs and Recipient/Benefactive marking | p. 31

Comitative verbs, prepositions and conjunctions | p. 47

Verbs and object markers | p. 65

Beyond conventional case roles | p. 139

Complementizers and subordinating conjunctions | p. 151

Adverbs and auxiliaries from verbs | p. 215

Pragmatics, typology and teleology | p. 235

Notes | p. 251

Language Index | p. 269

Index | p. 271

“The data in this book are impressive. The layout and organisation of the material are presented in a very 'user-friendly' and disciplined way. The author has succeeded in satisfying the needs of students as well as the more advanced.”

D.J. Prinsloo, University of Pretoria in South African Journal of African Languages 2001:15

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