Serial Verb Construction - The Phenomenon

The Phenomenon

The following example of serialization comes from Nupe:

(1)

In the English translation, the verb "came" takes an infinitival complement headed by the infinitive "to take". In the Nupe original, however, the two verbs are in the same clause, forming a sole predicate.

Serial verb constructions exhibit the following recurrent properties:

(i) Strings of serial verbs share the same subject.

(ii) Subject Agreement is often cross-referenced on the two verbs.

(2)(Baré)

In other cases, there is only one subject marker, but it is shared by the two verbs, as in the following example from Yoruba.

(3)

Both verbs are understood as third person singular.

(iii) The only constituent that can intervene between the two verbs is the object of one of them, and only in a subset of serial verb languages – cf. example (3).

(iv) There is only one negation marker for the whole construction.

(4)(Baré)

(v) Serial verbs cannot be marked independently for tense/aspect/mood categories. Either the relevant (identical) markers appear on all verbs in the clause, or a sole marker is shared by them (as they can share a subject marker, cf. example 3).