Serial verb construction
Encyclopedia
The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization, is a syntactic
phenomenon common to many African
, Asian and New Guinean
languages. Contrary to subordination
, where one clause
is embedded into another, verb serialization strings two verbs together in a sequence in which no verb is subordinated to the other.
:
(1) 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) nu-takasã nu-dúmaka (Baré
)
1SG-deceived 1SG-sleep
"I pretended (that) I was asleep."
In other cases, there is only a subject marker, but it is shared by the two verbs, as in the following example from Yoruba
.
(3) 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) hena nihiwawaka nu-tšereka nu-yaka-u abi (Baré
)
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 both verbs, or a sole marker is shared by them (as they can share a subject marker, cf. example 3).
or complex predication:
The difference between serial verbs and compound verbs, then, is that the former use more than one verb to express more than one action while the latter use more than one verb to express a single action. Compound verbs are very common in northern Indo-Aryan languages
like Hindi and Punjabi. They are less common in other Indo-Aryan languages and are also found in Dravidian
, Turkic
, Korean
and Japanese
, some Tibeto-Burman languages, some Northeast Caucasian languages
, and in Quichua. Serial verbs are found in all of these languages and, in addition to them, are found in Chinese, Mon–Khmer, Tai–Kadai, Kwa
, and in many pidgins and creole
s. (See V.S. Naipaul's use of the Trinidadian serial verbs insure-and-burn, choke-'n'-rob, etc.)
:
Mandarin Chinese:
Japanese:
With the first verb in the continuative form (連用形 ren'yōkei):
No verb argument
s can come between the two verbs.
With the first verb in the -te form (gerund or conjunctive participle):
This sequence is similar to English be seated: 'John is seated on a chair.'
Serial verbs can also be used to tie together any arbitrary string of verbs, often as a looser connection indicating causal or temporal relations, similar to English "and". A pair of examples from Hayao Miyazaki
's Mononoke Hime:
The second verb can also take its own arguments, making this construction a way of connecting entire clauses.
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
phenomenon common to many African
African languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
, Asian and New Guinean
Languages of Papua New Guinea
The languages of Papua New Guinea today number over 850, making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth. Its official languages are Tok Pisin, English and Hiri Motu...
languages. Contrary to subordination
Subordination (linguistics)
In linguistics, subordination is a complex syntactic construction in which one or more clauses are dependent on the main clause, such as The dog ran home after it had played with the ball. The italicized text is the subordinate clause...
, where one clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
is embedded into another, verb serialization strings two verbs together in a sequence in which no verb is subordinated to the other.
The phenomenon
The following example of serialization comes from NupeNupe language
The Nupe language is spoken primarily by the Nupe people of the Middle Belt region of Nigeria; its geographical distribution is limited to the west-central portion of this region and maintains pre-eminence in Niger State.-External links:*** Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Nupe....
:
(1) 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) nu-takasã nu-dúmaka (Baré
Baré language
Baré is an Arawakan language, probably extinct, of Venezuela and Brazil. Aikhenvald reports "just a few old speakers left" of Baré proper, and that the Guinau variety was extinct. Ethnologue reports "no known speakers". Kaufman considers Baré proper, Guinau, and extinct Marawá to be distinct...
)
1SG-deceived 1SG-sleep
"I pretended (that) I was asleep."
In other cases, there is only a subject marker, but it is shared by the two verbs, as in the following example from Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
.
(3) 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) hena nihiwawaka nu-tšereka nu-yaka-u abi (Baré
Baré language
Baré is an Arawakan language, probably extinct, of Venezuela and Brazil. Aikhenvald reports "just a few old speakers left" of Baré proper, and that the Guinau variety was extinct. Ethnologue reports "no known speakers". Kaufman considers Baré proper, Guinau, and extinct Marawá to be distinct...
)
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 both verbs, or a sole marker is shared by them (as they can share a subject marker, cf. example 3).
Contrast with compound verbs
The term serial verb is usually distinguished from compound verbCompound verb
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...
or complex predication:
- Serial verbs stack up several events (often but not always occurring sequentially), in a single clause. For example, EweEwe languageEwe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja...
, (lit. turn leave), "turn and leave"; Hindi फ़ोन उठा-कर कहा fon uṭhā-kar kahā (lit. phone pick.up-CONJPART say.PAST), "...picked up the phone and said...". In Chinese and in languages of Southeast Asia the direct object of a transitiveTransitive verbIn syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
first verb is the subject of the second verb: lǎo.hǔ yǎo-sǐ le zhāng (lit. tiger bite-die PERFPerfective aspectThe perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
Zhang) "the tiger bit Zhang to death" where zhang is the direct object of yǎo (bite) and the subject of sǐ (die). In the homologous serial verb in Hindi the one who dies would be the tiger, not Zhang.
- Compound verbCompound verbIn linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...
(also known as complex predicate): Here the first verb is the primary, and determines the primary semanticsSemanticsSemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
and also the argumentVerb argumentIn linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....
structure. The second verb, often called a vector verb or explicator verb, provides fine distinctions, (usually in speaker attitude or aspectGrammatical aspectIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
), and carries the inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
(tense / mood / agreement markers). Usually the main verb appears in conjunctive participleParticipleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
form (or, in Hindi and PunjabiPunjabi languagePunjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, as a bare stemWord stemIn linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
). For example, Hindi: सत्तू खा लिया sattū khā-liyā lit. parched.grain eat-TOOK, "ate up the sattu" (completive action) versus बच्चे.को खा-डाला bacce.ko khā-ḍālā lit. child eat-THREW, "devoured the child" (violent or unwanted action). In these examples, खा khā is the main or primary verb, and लिया liyā (TOOK) and डाला ḍālā (THREW) are the vector verbs.
The difference between serial verbs and compound verbs, then, is that the former use more than one verb to express more than one action while the latter use more than one verb to express a single action. Compound verbs are very common in northern Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
like Hindi and Punjabi. They are less common in other Indo-Aryan languages and are also found in Dravidian
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
, Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, some Tibeto-Burman languages, some Northeast Caucasian languages
Northeast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
, and in Quichua. Serial verbs are found in all of these languages and, in addition to them, are found in Chinese, Mon–Khmer, Tai–Kadai, Kwa
Kwa languages
The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo...
, and in many pidgins and creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
s. (See V.S. Naipaul's use of the Trinidadian serial verbs insure-and-burn, choke-'n'-rob, etc.)
Examples
Ewe languageEwe language
Ewe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja...
:
- (Kofi turn-PERF leave-PERF quietly)
- Kofi turned and left quietly.
Mandarin Chinese:
- I travel from Shanghai to Beijing by aircraft.
Japanese:
With the first verb in the continuative form (連用形 ren'yōkei):
- 押し通る (oshitōru, push through) in which oshi is the 'continuative' form of osu (push) and tōru (pass; get through) is the finite form whose present tense and indicative mood get read back onto oshi.
- 飛び込む (tobikomu, jump in) tobi (jump, from tobu) + komu (go/push in)
- 出来上がる (dekiagaru, be completed) deki (be able to be done, from dekiru) + agaru (rise, be offered)
No verb argument
Verb argument
In linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....
s can come between the two verbs.
With the first verb in the -te form (gerund or conjunctive participle):
- 開く (aku, to open [intransitive] Intransitive verbIn grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
) → 開いている (aite iru, has opened and is still open)
This sequence is similar to English be seated: 'John is seated on a chair.'
Serial verbs can also be used to tie together any arbitrary string of verbs, often as a looser connection indicating causal or temporal relations, similar to English "and". A pair of examples from Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
's Mononoke Hime:
- 足跡をたどって来た (ashi-ato o tadotte kita) 'I followed him here' (Lit: 'Following his foot prints I came.') in which the actions of following (辿る) and of coming (来る) are simultaneous.
- 恨みをのんで死んだ亡者 (urami o nonde shinda mōja) '...the dead, who died swallowing their resentment' in which nonde is in the -te conjunctive participial form of nomu (drink) and expresses an action prior to that of shinda (died).
The second verb can also take its own arguments, making this construction a way of connecting entire clauses.