Serial verbs in Oceanic

[Claire Bowern]

With Paul's permission I'd like to add a question to the thread.

(c) What prevents us from analysing (at least in some languages) the type
(2), *ambient* serials as prepositions? Especially when the "verb" seems to
be highly bleached, such as in this Titan example:

yo ku angani ala nat _kile kan_
1sg fut-1sg support 3pl child fut-"go to" food.
"I'll support the children _with food_"
         (where 'go to' is the meaning of the independent lexical verb
'le', and (k)ile is a deverbal 'preposition' (or ambient serial) meaning
usually either 'towards' or 'with, by' (instrumental)

What is the point at which such a 'thing' stops being a verb and starts
being a (deverbal) preposition?

- Claire

_________________________
Claire Bowern

Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
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