Serial verbs with motion verb.

[Joel Bradshaw]

Claire,

Patricia Hamel, now at the University of Wyoming, has published a grammar of
Loniu, another Admiralties language with verb serialization, and also a shorter
paper that focuses specifically on verb serialization. (The article was actually
written later but came out earlier than the monograph.) The references follow.

Hamel, Patricia J. 1994. A grammar and lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea.
Series C-103. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. <http://pacling.anu.edu.au/>
(Reviewed in Oceanic Linguistics 34.1:248-251) It's listed in the catalog, so it
seems to be still in print: ISBN 0 85883 410 3, x+275pp., A$37.40 [US$26.20]

Hamel, Patricia J. 1993. Serial verbs in Loniu and an evolving preposition.
Oceanic Linguistics 32.1:111-132. <http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/ol/>
(Abstract at http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/ol/OL321.html) The same
issue contains other articles on verb serialization. Back issues are available
(US$10).

In the article, Hamel finds that the same verb base -la 'go' governs a broad
range of adjunct NPs: factitives, results, purposes, instruments/manners,
objects of comparison, etc. It and a handful of similar motion/position verbs
also occur as preverbal auxiliaries.

Joel
--
Joel Bradshaw <bradshaw at hawaii.edu>
Journals Manager, University of Hawai'i Press
2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, HI 96822
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http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/


Claire Bowern wrote:

> I'm putting together a sketch grammar of Titan (one of the Admiralty
> Islands languages), based on Josef Meier's texts that he published in
> Anthropos from 1905-1912. You won't be surprised to learn that Titan has
> serial verbs... It's especially fond of nuclear serial verb constructions
> with a motion verb as the first verb ('go and do Y'). Some of the
> sentences, however, have this serial construction and a goal with one of
> the motion prepositions, as in "go to X and do Y", as in "X go eat to Y".
> In many cases the action Y is totally incompatible with motion (eg "go to
> Palitawi village and grind sago", not "go and grind sago to P. village").
> These can't be interpreted as "go and do Y _at_ X" as the prepositions
> involved always convey motion and not location. I was wondering if this is
> common in other languages. It's surprising to me in Titan because these
> "serial verbs" are usually semantically rather unevenly weighted, and the
> first verb usually behaves more like an auxiliary than a full verb,
> providing tense, aspect and associated motion information. It seems odd to
> have it governing adjuncts in this way. Any references and examples would
> be appreciated!
>
> Claire
>
> _________________________
> Claire Bowern
>
> Department of Linguistics
> Harvard University
> 305 Boylston Hall
> Cambridge, MA  02138
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