30.4351, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax; Typology: Aikhenvald (2018)

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Subject: 30.4351, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax; Typology: Aikhenvald (2018)

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Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2019 15:23:04
From: Thomas Schwaiger [schwaigt at gmx.at]
Subject: Serial Verbs

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1016.html

AUTHOR: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
TITLE: Serial Verbs
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Thomas Schwaiger, Institute of Linguistics, University of Graz

SUMMARY

The monograph “Serial verbs” by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is an up-to-date
stocktaking and expansion of typological research into serial verb
constructions (SVCs) or, simply, serial verbs. In line with the book’s
constituting a further entry in the “Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic
Theory” series, the author aims at providing “a thorough cross-linguistic
account of serial verbs in their impressive diversity” (p. 13), whereby “[t]he
analysis is cast in terms of basic linguistic theory” (p. 14).

Chapter 1 (“Serial verbs: The framework”) sets the scene by presenting and
exemplifying several typological key aspects of SVCs (all to be investigated
in more detail in later chapters), giving a continuum-style definition of the
phenomenon and completing the picture through brief outlines of the treatment
of serial verbs in the history of linguistics as well as in the formally and
functionally oriented theoretical literature.

Chapter 2 (“Recognizing a serial verb”) expands on the (often interrelated)
definitional properties of a prototypical SVC, i.e. two or more verbs with no
mark of dependency between them which could all also function on their own as
the sole verbs in a clause, additionally characterized by monopredicativity,
monoclausality, monoverbal prosody, a sharing of grammatical values (e.g.
tense, aspect, mood, polarity, etc.) and arguments (e.g. subjects and objects)
as well as the expression of a single event.

Chapter 3 (“Serial verbs: Their composition and meanings”) differentiates SVCs
in terms of their compositional (a)symmetry. Asymmetrical serial verbs involve
components of different status: a ‘major’ verb from an unrestricted open class
(the ‘semantic head’ of the construction) and a ‘minor’ verb from a
semantically or grammatically limited and closed class (e.g. motion and
posture verbs, stative verbs, intransitive verbs, etc.). The minor component
endows the semantics of the major component with various specifications like
direction, orientation, aspect or a change of valency. Symmetrical SVCs
combine verbs of any semantic type and of which none can be considered the
construction’s ‘head’. Their meanings include, inter alia, related sequential
or concomitant actions, cause-effect and resultative relationships or the
expression of manner, and they are at most restricted by culturally induced
considerations of semantic plausibility. Asymmetrical and symmetrical serial
verbs can occur together in ‘nested’ structures of three or more verbs, and
they differ further in that the former do not necessarily show iconicity in
the sequencing of their verbal components and tend to grammaticalize, while
the latter typically display iconic ordering and are prone to lexicalization.
Nevertheless, the area between asymmetrical and symmetrical SVCs can sometimes
be fuzzy and classificatory decisions may then rest with the particular
analyses of individual languages.

Chapter 4 (“Formal properties of serial verbs”) discusses the forms of SVCs
with regard to contiguity (whether the verbal components have to stand next to
each other or not), wordhood (whether the verbal components constitute one or
more grammatical and/or phonological words), the expression of grammatical
categories (whether all verbal components are concordantly marked for person,
tense, aspect, polarity, etc. or just one of them is; crucially, the question
of marking is a different one from the values of such categories, as the
latter are always shared within serial verbs according to their definition)
and transitivity matching (whether all verbal components are required to have
the same transitivity or not; the former state of affairs seems only to be
found in languages with few or no ambitransitive verbs). Although these
parameters are relatively independent from each other, certain limitations can
be discerned: non-contiguous single-word SVCs are only rarely attested in the
world’s languages (e.g. Cantonese, Northern Paiute and Tepehua) and
single-word serial verbs always have single marking of grammatical categories.

Chapter 5 (“The limits of verb serialization”) first addresses different
degrees of SVC productivity: productively serializing languages use both
asymmetrical and symmetrical types, while limited serialization languages only
have one, usually the asymmetrical, type. Double verb constructions in
(Indo-)European languages like Estonian, Russian and Hittite, which can all be
seen as instances of limited serial verbs, are also mentioned. Subsequently,
SVCs are located within the broader context of clause sequences and other
multi-verb constructions, where serial verbs need to be kept apart from
superficially similar structures as in coordination and subordination, clause
chaining, auxiliary and converb constructions or verbal compounding.

Chapter 6 (“The many facets of serial verbs”) starts out by looking at the
properties of different SVCs occurring in one and the same language. Several
wordhood and contiguity combinations are examined, uncovering the fact that
most languages with more than one have two, sometimes three, kinds of serial
verbs differing according to these parameters, whereby the intralanguage
opposition is typically one between ‘looser, less tightly knit’ and ‘more
tightly knit’ formal as well as semantic (i.e. event) structures. This
tendency is explained by adducing the principle of iconicity. In a next step,
the general likelihood of specific verb types in SVCs as well as of specific
SVC types in languages is described. The presence of asymmetrical serial verbs
is concluded to imply the presence of symmetrical serial verbs in a language.
The minor verbs in asymmetrical SVCs preferably come from the class of basic
motion verbs, while stative verbs are much less preferred. Languages prefer
asymmetrical serial verbs of the directional type, while the
valency-decreasing type is far less frequent. Symmetrical SVCs, on the other
hand, show fewer restrictions, correlating with semantic acceptability.

Chapter 7 (“What are serial verbs good for?”) turns to the many grammatical,
discourse-pragmatic as well as event-representational uses of SVCs. They cover
all sorts of meanings that are expressed by different morphological and
syntactic means in other languages; they can be recruited for the expression
of discourse-related notions like definiteness, focus or politeness; and they
may serve to portray events of all sorts in highly vivid detail, often with
stylistic effects. Correlating serial verbs with the typological profiles and
lexicons of their respective languages shows that SVCs always operate on a
nominative-accusative basis and that they are common in--but not exclusive
to--analytic and isolating language types as a compensation for a lack of
inflectional morphology, while in other cases serial verbs may compensate for
a closed class of verbs or a relative lack of semantic complexity in the
verbal lexicon.

Chapter 8 (“The rise and fall of serial verbs”) is devoted to the questions of
where serial verbs come from, including language contact and substratum
influence, and where they go to in terms of grammaticalization and
lexicalization, as well as their acquisition by children and their loss in
language dissolution. Clause fusion, verbal modification and concurrent
grammaticalization are suggested as three non-mutually-exclusive scenarios for
the origin of SVCs. Inflectional loss and analytic spread are said to favor
the development of serial verbs, likewise the reinforcement or enhancement of
SVCs in language contact situations. Conversely, contact with non-serializing
languages may lead to de-serialization. In many parts of the world, SVCs
represent an areal linguistic feature (a very instructive case is discussed
with respect to the Amazonian language Tariana). A limited number of studies
on Cantonese, Mandarin, Morisyen and Seselwa demonstrate that serial verbs are
acquired relatively early and in such a way that their complexity increases
along with the language learning child getting older. The disintegration of
SVCs in aphasia seems to be a concomitant of losing syntactically complex
structures in general.

Chapter 9 (“The essence of serial verbs”) provides a summary of all the
foregoing chapters, additionally offering an overview of the differences
between SVCs, clause sequences and multi-verb predicates with converbs in
Table 9.2 (p. 243), the latter not given in Chapter 5, where these
constructions are originally contrasted.

EVALUATION

Next to offering the most comprehensive treatment of serial verbs in the
world’s languages to date, Aikhenvald’s monograph can also, according to its
preface, “be used both as a sourcebook for further typological investigations,
and a textbook” (p. ix). It probably goes without saying that, given the scope
and breadth of the concepts and data covered in the chapters summarized above,
recommendations for the latter use should definitely be narrowed down to
advanced coursework in linguistics (see also the respective bibliographic
entry annotated in Aikhenvald 2018). With that (nevertheless) said, the
checklist in the addendum after the last chapter (“A fieldworker’s guide:
Serial verb constructions--how to know more”) may also be used by students as
a guide to the comprehension of the topics in individual chapters.

On a more general level, it is precisely the vast amount of material as well
as the thoroughness of its discussion that together form one of the major
strengths of the book. Thus, the goal of presenting the cross-linguistic
diversity of SVCs is definitely met. The study is refreshingly grounded in
classical typology in being “truly empirically based” and “not restricted to a
sample of any type”, so that the ensuing qualitative “examination of about 800
grammars” easily compensates for any quantitative shortcomings which might
result from the author’s choice “not to give any statistical counts” (p. 14).
A minor drawback of the book’s explicit footing in basic linguistic theory has
to do with the fact that many pertinent theoretical controversies surrounding
serial verbs, pertaining to both formalist as well as functionalist theories
of different kinds, are not reviewed in any depth and the reader is instead
relegated to arguments like the ones in Durie (1997: 294-320) or Reid (2011:
179). In some places it is felt that a more detailed ‘in situ argumentation’,
also addressing potential counterexamples, would have enriched the account at
hand, especially concerning the Role and Reference Grammar distinction between
‘core’ and ‘nuclear’ serialization criticized on pp. 17-18.

To a large extent, the book under review may be directly compared to an
earlier typological article by Aikhenvald (2006), of which it can be said to
be a continuation and expansion. This is particularly evident from the
parallel content and numbering over certain stretches of both studies (e.g.
§§2.1-6, §§3.2.1-8, §§3.3.1-4, §§3.4.1-2, §§4.1-4 and §5.1). Minor differences
can be spotted between Table 2.1 (p. 45) and Table 1 (Aikhenvald 2006: 15),
both summarizing the properties of SVCs with non-identical subjects. More
fundamental differences involve the attestation of non-contiguous single-word
serial verbs on p. 97 still absent from Aikhenvald (2006: 39), as well as a
slight change of heart on p. 36 concerning the status of multi-scene SVCs in
Kalam as compared to Aikhenvald (2006: 10, note 4).

The overall discussion and exemplification throughout the book are coherent
and easy to follow. Some readers might feel the repetitions found in several
chapters to be somewhat redundant, though others (first and foremost the
textbook users) might be appreciative of exactly this feature. There are only
a few passages where a clearer understanding of the argumentation is
potentially impeded. In Chapter 2, more space could have been devoted to the
not so obvious question of in how far the criterion of a single polarity value
is not contradicted by SVCs with different negation scope interpretations (see
also Aikhenvald 2006: 8-10 and Haspelmath 2016: 301, note 6, who merely states
“that single negatability does not mean that the negation can have only a
single scope interpretation”). Similarly, the reference to secondary-A and
secondary-B concepts in Chapter 3 could have benefited from a more extensive
introduction of the terms as these do not seem to be part of standard
linguistic terminology. Also, given that “[w]hat secondary verbs have in
common is their semantic dependency: they cannot occur on their own without
another verb for which they provide semantic modification” (pp. 61-62), the
implications of this statement for the definitional property of serial verb
components having to be able to be used on their own could have been further
explored. Does this mean, for instance, that secondary verbs used outside of
SVCs have to co-occur with other verbs that are in some kind of dependent
form? Again in Chapter 3, the grammaticalization of asymmetrical serial verbs
is held responsible for the latter’s non-compositional meanings, which is
contrasted with the lexicalization and idiomatic meanings of symmetrical SVCs
(see p. 84). But isn’t non-compositionality also, or even rather, a property
of lexicalizations and idioms? A related question concerns the discussion of
Paraguayan Guaraní serial verbs in Chapter 6, where it seems that both
lexicalization and grammaticalization can have the same contiguous single-word
symmetrical SVC as their point of departure (see p. 149). A final issue
relates to the reiteration in Chapter 5 of the assertion that “a serial verb
construction consists of two or more verbs each of which can be used as
independent predicates in the very form they occur in a serial verb” (p. 136).
In light of this stronger reformulation, one could of course wonder whether
this is also true for an unmarked verb in single-marking SVCs.

By way of conclusion, mention should also be made of the several valuable
passages of a more general linguistic relevance scattered throughout the study
(and sometimes even hidden in an endnote), for example the “cautionary tale
against building a theoretical argument based on one isolated language fact”
(p. 120, note 8) or that “[t]he ability to have just one component [of a
serial verb; TS] within its scope can be a means of differentiating
inflectional categories--such as tense or aspect, with a clausal scope--from
derivational categories, whose scope is just one word” (p. 114).

In sum, some minor points of criticism notwithstanding, the book under review
not only captures an impressively diverse linguistic phenomenon, but its
author achieves this in an impressively reader-friendly manner. Aikhenvald’s
“Serial verbs” will thus equally appeal to advanced students of linguistics,
linguists interested in SVCs or the syntax-semantics interface in general as
well as anyone with a basic linguistic knowledge and a curiosity about the
diversity of human languages.

REFERENCES

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2006. Serial verb constructions in typological
perspective. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Serial verb
constructions: A cross-linguistic typology (Explorations in Linguistic
Typology), 1-68. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2018. Serial verbs. In Mark Aronoff (ed.), Oxford
bibliographies online: Linguistics.
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-978019
9772810-0222.xml (26 October, 2018.)

Durie, Mark. 1997. Grammatical structures in verb serialization. In Alex
Alsina, Joan Bresnan & Peter Sells (eds.), Complex predicates (Center for the
Study of Language and Information Lecture Notes 64), 289-354. Stanford: CSLI
Publications.

Haspelmath, Martin. 2016. The serial verb construction: Comparative concept
and cross-linguistic generalizations. Language and Linguistics 17. 291-319.

Reid, Nicholas. 2011. Ngan’gityemerri: A language of the Daly River region,
Northern Territory of Australia (Outstanding Grammars from Australia 6).
Munich: Lincom Europa.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Thomas Schwaiger holds a master's and a PhD degree (dissertation title: ''The
structure of reduplicants: A typological investigation of iconicity and
preferred form in reduplication'') from the University of Graz, Austria, where
he is currently working at the Institute of Linguistics as a postdoctoral
researcher with a focus on morphology, syntax, semantics, typology, Functional
Discourse Grammar and the history of linguistics. He has published on various
aspects of reduplication and taught several courses in the core areas of
linguistics.





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