Serial verb construction

The terms "serial verbs", "serialization", etc. are used by different authors to denote somewhat different sets of constructions. There are also differences in how the constructions are analyzed in terms of both syntax and semantics. In general, a structure described as a serial verb construction will consist either of two (or possibly more) consecutive verbs or of two or more consecutive verb phrases in which each verb may have its own object and possibly other modifiers. There will usually be no marking, by means of affixes or subordinating conjunctions, that one verb is dependent on the other, and they will not be linked by coordinating conjunctions. Some linguists insist that serial verbs cannot be dependent on each other; however, if a language does not mark dependent verbs with affixation, it can be difficult to determine whether any dependency relation exists when verbs appear in sequence. Serial verbs normally denote actions that are closely connected and can be considered to be part of the same event. They may be actions taking place simultaneously, or one may represent the cause, purpose or result of the other. In most cases, the serial verbs in a sequence are understood to share the same subject. Certain expressions resembling serial verb construction are found in English (surviving from Early Modern English), such as ''let's go eat and come live with me. In such constructions, the second verb would normally be regarded as a bare infinitive (and can generally be replaced by a "full" infinitive by the insertion of to'' before it). == Examples with consecutive verbs ==

This sentence in Persian contains 19 consecutive verbs: It means: ''I was heading and I saw she/he is sitting, I thought to ask to see whether he would come or wouldn't come, I figure out "I don't want to come, and I want to go get some sleep" he said!'' The following example of serialization comes from the Nupe language from Nigeria: {{interlinear|indent=2|lang=jig In Santali, apart from serial compound verbs, a rare serial verb construction denotes distinct sub-events/quasi-synonymous events of the same situation and also serializes TAM/person in the syntagmas, where the pronominal object markers appear twice, but the indicative marker occurs only once in the final verb. == Examples with intervening elements between verbs ==

In some languages that have verb serialization, the verbs must appear consecutively, with nothing intervening. In other languages, however, it is possible for arguments, normally the object of one of the verbs, to come in between the serialized verbs. The resulting construction is a sequence of verb phrases, rather than of plain verbs. The following example is from Yoruba, from Nigeria: {{interlinear|indent=2| lang = yo The object of the first verb intervenes between the verbs, resulting in two consecutive verb phrases, the first meaning "took the book" and the second "came". As before, the subject ("he" in this case) is understood to apply to both verbs. The combined action of taking the book and coming can be translated as "bringing" the book. A serial verb construction may be used to introduce an actant ("money" in the following example, from Akan of West Africa): {{interlinear|indent=2| lang = ak Also in Japanese, strings of verb phrases can be created, often denoting events that are related causally or in time. Such strings may be translated into English by using "and", "while", "(in order) to" or other connectives, but some may have a more compact translation, as in the following example (from Hayao Miyazaki's Mononoke Hime) in which the actions of "following" and "coming" are simultaneous: {{fs interlinear|indent = 2|lang = ja == Contrast with compound verbs ==

A distinction is sometimes made between serial verbs and compound verbs (also known as complex predicates). In a compound verb, the first element (verb or noun) generally carries most of the semantic load, and the second element, often called a vector verb (light verb) or explicator verb, provides fine distinctions (such as the speaker's attitude or grammatical aspect) and carries the inflection (markers of tense, mood and agreement). The first element may be a verb in the conjunctive participle form, as in Hindi and Punjabi. For example, in Hindi, in the second example below, लिया (liyā) (from the verb लेना lenā "to take") is a vector verb that indicates a completed action which is done for one's own benefit, and खा (khā) "eat" is the main or primary verb. In the third example below, डाला (ḍālā) (from the verb डालना ḍālnā "to put" or "to insert") is the vector verb, which indicates recklessness, gruesomeness, or an unwanted action. Both खा लिया (khā liyā) and खा डाला (khā ḍālā) alternate with the corresponding perfective form of the main verb (in this case, खाया khāyā "ate") under partly specifiable semantic and pragmatic conditions. Negating the compound verbs in the indicative mood usually suppresses the vector verb in favor of their non-compound counterparts. This following sentence makes use of the vector verb लेना (lenā) "to take", which is dropped in the negative: However, compound verbs in the subjunctive mood retain the vector verbs when the former are negated. == See also ==