Serial Verb Constructions: Cross-Linguistic Typology, A

Description:
This volume of new work explores the forms and functions of serial verbs. The introduction sets out the cross-linguistic parameters of variation, and the final chapter draws out a set of conclusions. These frame fourteen explorations of serial verb constructions and similar structures in languages from Asia, Africa, North, Central and South America, and the Pacific. Chapters on well-known languages such as Cantonese and Thai are set alongside the languages of small hunter-gatherer and slash-and-burn agriculturalist groups. A serial verb construction (sometimes just called serial verb) is a sequence of verbs which acts together as one. Each describes what can be conceptualized as a single event. They are monoclausal; their intonational properties are those of a monoverbal clause; they generally have just one tense, aspect, mood, and polarity value; and they are an important tool in cognitive packaging of events. Serial verb constructions are a pervasive feature of isolating languages of Asia and West Africa, and are also found in the languages of the Pacific, South, Central and North America, most of them endangered.Serial verbs have been a subject of interest among linguists for some time. This outstanding book is the first to study the phenomenon across languages of different typological and genetic profiles. The authors, all experienced linguistic fieldworkers, follow a unified typological approach and avoid formalisms. The book will interest students, at graduate level and above, of syntax, typology, language universals, information structure, and language contact, in departments of linguistics and anthroplogy.

Review:
...the book is a feast for thought. Anyone with an interest in SVCs and related types of complex predicate must read it... N.J.Enfield, Language

Table of Contents:
1. Serial Verb Constructions in Typological Perspective; 2. On Serial Verb Constructions in Cantonese; 3. Serial Verb Constructions in Goemai; 4. Serial Verb Constructions in Khwe (Central-Khoisan); 5. Ewe Serial Verb Constructions in their Grammatical Context; 6. Verb Serialization in Eastern Kayah Li; 7. Thai Serial Verbs: Cohesion and Culture; 8. Serial Verb Constructions in Tariana; 9. Serial Verb Constructions in Dumo; 10. Serial Verb Constructions in Mwotlap; 11. Serial Verbs in Tetun Dili; 12. Serial Verb Constructions in Toqabaqita; 13. Serial Verbs in Olutec (Mixean); 14. Serial Verbs in Lakota (Siouan); 15. Verbal Compounding in Wolaitta; 16. Serial Verb Constructions: Conspectus and Coda; Index of Authors; Index of Subjects; Index of Languages, Language Families, and Areas