Summary and Discussion:

1. Summary and Discussion: Intertheoretical Approaches to Complex Verb Constructions C. Bowern, 18th March 2006.

2. Abbreviations • SVC = Serial Verb Construction • LVC = Light Verb Construction • (Won’t be talking about the other types)

3. Issues (= Recurring Themes) • Finiteness • Lexicality • Sources of SVCs and LVCs, and what they turn into • Continua

4. 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.

5. 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 (??)

6. 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)

7. (Similar difficulty in identifying LVCs in some languages) – e.g. just because something is preverbal, doesn’t mean it’s a preverb • Any solution apart from more native speaker linguists? (these are problems that linguists with nonnative fluency probably can’t solve)

8. Finiteness • = Inflected for person • = Inflected for tense/aspect • (gradient feature) • Therefore, SVCs are mostly symmetric, LVCs never (?) are – but cf Thepkanjana’s 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.

10. Loniu and Titan (Admiralty Islands) • deverbal preps agree for tense Ala Yap ala-me sos, ala-sos i-ti Nauna 3pl Yapese 3pl.nfut=come meet, 3pl.nfut=meet nfut-’on’ Nauna. ‘The people from Yap met together on Nauna.’

11. 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

12. ‘Lexical’ verb implies ‘listed in the mental lexicon with its own entry’ • lexical = heavy verb (vs light verb) • but some LVCs ‘lexical’ in that they’re formed in the lexicon vs in the syntax • If formed in syntax can’t be formed from full verb w. argument structure changes (implies non-monotonic theory)

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

14. 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)

15. 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

16. Continua, Clines and the like • What does it mean to say that a particular property is gradient? • What should we do about it?

17. Identifying a category as gradient isn’t 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

18. 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 it’s a fundamental difference in approach to research and the nature of explanation and agree to differ

19. Areality and borrowability • Tend to cluster areally

21. 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?

22. 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 it’s able to act as a full predicate on its own and what licenses the coverb as a predicate) • Bardi coverbs can’t appear without a light verb – not fully lexical themselves? Can’t license the appearance of all their arguments without another part of the predicate?

23. Similarities • Semantics • function of marking event perspectives

24. 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 aren’t usually (ever?) event chains

25. 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.

26. Some things we didn’t 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 aren’t uniform in many languages.

27. 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

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