Summary and Discussion:

1
Summary and Discussion

• Intertheoretical Approaches to Complex Verb
  Constructions

C. Bowern, 18th March 2006.
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Abbreviations

• SVC Serial Verb Construction
• LVC Light Verb Construction
• (Wont be talking about the other types)

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Issues ( Recurring Themes)

• Finiteness
• Lexicality
• Sources of SVCs and LVCs, and what they turn into
• Continua

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Back to the definition

• Complex Predicates have the properties of a
  single predicational head spread over several
  items in the predicate.
• overlapping arg structure
• single event described
• monoclausal (monopredicational? ie a single
  complex predicate, or a set of predicates in a
  single clause?)
• Challenge to the unity of the word as an atom
  of syntax (cf. Woodbury 2003).
• However, not all definitions invoked this some
  relied on monoclausality.

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Aside Does Bardi have Serialization under this
definition?

• LVCs (head extensively)
• Australian Serialisation (not common)
• Pilbara (Crow is sitting chasing them Peter
  Austin)
• Arnhem Land e.g. Yan-nhangu binmunu do thus,
  garama go, gabatthun run and a few others.
• Bardi (??)

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Bardi serialization?

• Multiple verbs under a single intonation contour
• No conjunctions or other markers of subordination
  (although these also exist)
• Argument sharing.
• (But not conventionalised? Only narrative use)

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• (Similar difficulty in identifying LVCs in some
  languages) e.g. just because something is
  preverbal, doesnt mean its a preverb
• Any solution apart from more native speaker
  linguists? (these are problems that linguists
  with nonnative fluency probably cant solve)

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Finiteness

• Inflected for person
• Inflected for tense/aspect
• (gradient feature)
• Therefore, SVCs are mostly symmetric, LVCs never
  (?) are but cf Thepkanjanas data several
  Thai SVCs appear to have similar functions to
  light verbs.

9
Finiteness, cont.

• Ambient serialisation
• Still serialisation, but verb not necessarily
  marked for tense/aspect.
• In process of grammaticalisation of SVCs into
  (e.g.) PPs, must lose those features at some
  point.

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Loniu and Titan (Admiralty Islands)

• deverbal preps agree for tense
• Ala Yap ala-me sos, ala-sos i-ti Nauna
• 3pl Yapese 3pl.nfutcome meet, 3pl.nfutmeet
  nfut-on Nauna.
• The people from Yap met together on Nauna.

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Lexicality

• more or less lexical? based on citeria of
• arg structure,
• full semantics (ie comparable semantics to main
  verb use)
• lexicality in the sense of the phrase undergoing
  lexical rules (e.g. nominalization - Bodomo)
• Thai
• Bardi
• Farsi

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• Lexical verb implies listed in the mental
  lexicon with its own entry
• lexical heavy verb (vs light verb)
• but some LVCs lexical in that theyre formed in
  the lexicon vs in the syntax
• If formed in syntax cant be formed from full
  verb w. argument structure changes (implies
  non-monotonic theory)

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• Therefore, need two verbs
• sayfull
• saylight
• How different is that from common or garden
  polysemy?
• How to tell polysemy from underspecification?
  non-rhetorical question

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Diachrony (1) Results

• The dead-end idea.
• Classifiers (Gooniyandi McGregor 1990)
• Classifiers (Udi Harris)
• Not great even for Indic (Pardeshi and Hook)
• Non-uniform behaviour synchronically (Shibatani
  for Atayal and Japanese cf Bardi)

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Diachrony (2)

• Sources
• Other complex preds (cf Butt and Lahiri)
• Parataxis
• Generalisation of a rather specific construction
  e.g. English go X
• go eat
• come go eat
• went ate
• go suck on a neutron star/go bang some rocks
  together four-eyes (Zaphod Beeblebrox)
• go vituperate

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Continua, Clines and the like

• What does it mean to say that a particular
  property is gradient?
• What should we do about it?

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• Identifying a category as gradient isnt the end
  of the story
• A variable can be gradient for many different
  reasons.
• Different speakers with different internal
  grammars (multiple different discrete grammars)
• Different but related phenomena which are
  themselves discrete
• Other factors which interact and give the
  appearance of scalarity

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Solutions

• Give up
• Recognize the gradience but recognize too that
  many aspects of the world are gradient but can
  still be modelled discretely.
• phonemes
• taxa
• Develop scalar models
• Be more specific about the scalarity what
  causes it (cf Shibatani on motion serialisation)
• Recognise that its a fundamental difference in
  approach to research and the nature of
  explanation and agree to differ

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Areality and borrowability

• Tend to cluster areally

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(No Transcript)
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• Therefore, easily borrowed? (e.g.
  Schultze-Berndt)
• BUT, what gets borrowed and how does it arise?
• embedding
• coverb borrowing
• coverb light verb borrowing?
• calquing? code-switching?
• i.e. is this lexical borrowing, or syntactic
  borrowing, or neither?

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E.g. North Australia

• Rather different underlying organisation, e.g. in
  Northern Australia
• (Most of the differences in N. Aus. fall out from
  how eventive the coverb is that is, how well
  its able to act as a full predicate on its own
  and what licenses the coverb as a predicate)
• Bardi coverbs cant appear without a light verb
  not fully lexical themselves? Cant license the
  appearance of all their arguments without another
  part of the predicate?

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Similarities

• Semantics
• function of marking event perspectives

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Differences b/w LVCs and SVCs

• Sources
• Givón LVCs (e.g. Wagiman) typically arise
  through embedding (especially where there is
  asymmetric finiteness)
• Argument sharing properties
• (not discussed, but different)
• Narrative light verbs? (NO?)
• LVCs arent usually (ever?) event chains

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Event chains

• Wagiman
• ngi-ya-nggi woerrkge-ma maman // garatjjin
  dorroh-dorroh // denh-na wirin.
• 1pl.go-past work well // grass pull // cut tree.
• We worked well, pulling out grass, cutting trees.
• Bardi
• cf serialisation above NEVER coverb
  chaining.

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Some things we didnt talk about (much)

• Headedness
• Argument sharing
• Valency and valency determinates
• Slave, Koyukon, Warlpiri Valency is
  straightforward
• Bardi valency is messy
• Semantic roles can arise through the construction
• Relationship between grammaticalization and
  frequency and between stability and change
• Butt and Lahiri LVCs are stable once they
  arise. BUT LVCs arent uniform in many languages.

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Where to?

• Have to look at
• cognitive underpinnings cognitive versus
  grammatical definitions
• processing issues
• Social/Interactive issue information gain?
• the universals versus the language/culture
  specific items

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• Concetration on variation makes identification of
  universals difficult
• OT/LFG
• The nature of explanation