[Lingtyp] lexical aspect / actionality / Aktionsart in verb serialization / verb compounds / lexical affixes etc.

[Paul Hopper]

A couple of papers of my own on this topic:

Paul Hopper, 2007 “Emergent Serialization in English: Pragmatics and
Typology.” In Jeff Good, ed., *Language Universals and Language Change, *
520-554*.* Oxford U. Press.

Paul Hopper, 2007 “Verb serialization with *to take* in English, with a
note on French and German.” *Combat pour les Langues du Monde: Hommage à
Claude Hagège *ed. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest, 199-210, Editions L’Harmattan.

Paul Hopper, 2002 “Hendiadys and auxiliation in English.” *Complex
Sentences in Grammar and Discourse,* ed. Joan Bybee and Mickey Noonan,
145-173. Benjamins.

Coseriu 1996, mentioned by Paolo Ramat, also some discussion by me in the
Jeff Good 2007 volume, proposes syntactic diffusion to explain the spread
of 'take' in Europe. Maybe, but 'take' is common as the first term in
serialization constructions, see e.g. Carol Lord 1993 Historical Change in
Verb Serialization (Benjamins) on West African languages and a lot more
studies. One intriguing aspect is the emergent grammar of hendyadic
combinations like *go ahead and, turn around and, *and many others,
including, at a further point on the spectrum, *pick up the phone and, roll
up one's sleeves and, look NP in the eye and,* etc. It might be hard to
draw a line between the grammatical and the idiomatic identification of
aspect.

There is a large bibliography reflecting a variety of approaches. I'm aware
of Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen's work on hendiadys from an Interactional
Linguistics perspective, for example.

- Paul Hopper

On Wed, May 22, 2024 at 9:06 AM Randy J. LaPolla via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Hi Adam,
> Modern Mandarin Chinese does not have causative accomplishment and
> causative achievement verbs, and so to express the sense of such verbs,
> e.g. I broke a cup, one uses a serial verb construction where the first
> verb expresses the causal action and the second verb expresses the
> resulting accomplishment or achievement, e.g. [I hit-broke a cup]. This has
> been recognised for some 40+ years, so is discussed in any grammar of
> Chinese since then. This sort of thing is also found in some other
> Sino-Tibetan languages. See Matisoff 1969 (attached) or his 1973 Grammar of
> Lahu (U of California Press) for discussion of Lahu examples.
>
> Randy
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2024, at 5:29 PM, Adam James Ross Tallman via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm interested in combinations of lexical elements (serial verb
> constructions or verb compound constructions or whatever) and whether there
> is anything specific work which has described, classified or theorized
> about these in terms of lexical aspect. I guess the question is:
>
> When V1 combines with V2, what happens to the actionality class of the
> combination? Is one just subordinated to the other or is there some way in
> which the aspects of each are coerced?
>
> I've seen a lot of discussions about how pieces of such constructions
> might evolve into grammatical aspect markers (e.g. "finish" gradually
> becomes a completive marker), but I wonder why there appear to be few
> descriptions of the actionality classes of lexical combinations?
>
>
> best,
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> --
> Adam J.R. Tallman
> Post-doctoral Researcher
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
> Department of English Studies
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-- 


__________

Paul J. Hopper

Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Humanities

Department of English

Dietrich College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh PA 15213, USA
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