The Phenomenon
The following example of serialization comes from Nupe:
(1)
| Musa bé lá èbi. | |||
| Musa | bé | lá | èbi. |
| Musa | came | took | knife |
| "Musa came to take the knife." | |||
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)
| nu-takasã nu-dúmaka | |
| nu-takasã | nu-dúmaka |
| 1SG-deceived | 1SG-sleep |
| "I pretended (that) I was asleep." | |
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)
| ó mú ìwé wá | |||
| ó | mú | ìwé | wá |
| 3SG | took | book | came |
| "He brought the book." | |||
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)
| hena nihiwawaka nu-tšereka nu-yaka-u abi | ||||
| hena | nihiwawaka | nu-tšereka | nu-yaka-u | abi |
| NEG | 1SG:go | 1SG-speak | 1SG-parent-FEM | with |
| "I am not going to talk with my mother." | ||||
(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).
Read more about this topic: Serial Verb Construction
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