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UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: A Case Study from Koro Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3kx006xq Author Cleary-Kemp, Jessica Publication Date 2015-07-01 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: A Case Study from Koro By Jessica Cleary-Kemp A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Associate Professor Lev D. Michael, Chair Assistant Professor Peter S. Jenks Professor William F. Hanks Summer 2015 © Copyright by Jessica Cleary-Kemp All Rights Reserved Abstract Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: A Case Study from Koro by Jessica Cleary-Kemp Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Associate Professor Lev D. Michael, Chair In this dissertation a methodology for identifying and analyzing serial verb constructions (SVCs) is developed, and its application is exemplified through an analysis of SVCs in Koro, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. SVCs involve two main verbs that form a single predicate and share at least one of their arguments. In addition, they have shared values for tense, aspect, and mood, and they denote a single event. The unique syntactic and semantic properties of SVCs present a number of theoretical challenges, and thus they have invited great interest from syntacticians and typologists alike. But characterizing the nature of SVCs and making generalizations about the typology of serializing languages has proven difficult. There is still debate about both the surface properties of SVCs and their underlying syntactic structure. The current work addresses some of these issues by approaching serialization from two angles: the typological and the language-specific. On the typological front, it refines the definition of ‘SVC’ and develops a principled set of cross-linguistically applicable diagnostics. From the existing set of surface properties, four core characteristics are distilled: main verbhood, monoclausality, single eventhood, and argument sharing. A construction must have all of these properties in order to qualify as an SVC. Once these underlying semantic and syntactic properties of SVCs are identified, a detailed and explicit set of criteria is developed that allows these underlying properties to be tested in any language. The latter part of the dissertation offers a case study in the use of these diagnostic criteria by applying them to multi-verb constructions in Koro. Testing these constructions against the definition of SVCs developed in the dissertation reveals that although there are numerous multi-verb constructions in Koro that appear to fulfill the surface criteria for SVCs, only one of these can be considered a true SVC. This construction has a VP-shell structure, in which V1 is a path or locative verb that takes V2 as its complement. The shared argument is the subject of V2, providing a counter-example to Baker’s (1989) claim that SVCs obligatorily share an internal argument. Constructions that instead involve adjunction of V2 to V1 are shown through detailed semantic investigation to be disqualified as SVCs, because they do not exhibit the expected entailments. This is surprising because they superficially resemble 1 proto-typical SVCs. The syntactic and semantic analysis of these constructions leads to the hypothesis that true SVCs must have a relation of complementation between the verbs, while adjoined or coordinated constructions cannot be considered SVCs. 2 This dissertation is dedicated to the people of Papitalai village. i Contents List of Tables v List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations and conventions xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction and aims of the dissertation . .1 1.2 Consultants and methodology . .5 1.3 The Koro language and its speakers . .6 1.3.1 Genetic affiliation and dialects . .6 1.3.2 Previous research . 11 1.3.3 Typological characteristics . 12 1.4 Structure of the dissertation . 18 2 Functional categories in the Koro verbal clause 21 2.1 Introduction . 21 2.2 An overview of Koro verbal clause structure . 22 2.3 A Neo-Reichenbachian approach to tense and aspect . 28 2.4 Temporal adverbs . 31 2.5 Aspect markers . 35 2.5.1 Proximative aspect . 35 2.5.2 Prospective aspect . 38 2.5.3 Perfect aspect . 41 2.6 Reality status . 44 2.6.1 Background: analyses of reality status . 46 2.6.2 Irrealis contexts that do not require an additional morpheme . 49 2.6.3 Irrealis contexts that require an additional morpheme . 53 2.6.4 Past habitual . 54 2.6.5 Contexts that do not trigger irrealis marking . 56 2.6.6 Discussion . 57 2.7 Negation . 60 ii Contents 2.7.1 Asymmetry in the paradigm . 61 2.7.2 Asymmetry in the construction . 62 2.7.3 Subordination and negation . 65 2.8 Conclusion . 68 3 Path verbs and locative predicates 69 3.1 Introduction . 69 3.2 General properties of path and locative predicates . 71 3.2.1 Unaccusativity . 72 3.2.2 Inability to be nominalized . 76 3.3 Path verbs . 77 3.3.1 Prepositional path verbs . 79 3.3.1.1 Spatial deixis . 79 3.3.1.2 Lexical aspect . 80 3.3.2 Non-prepositional path verbs . 84 3.4 Locative predicates . 86 3.4.1 Locative and posture verbs . 88 3.4.2 Locative copula ta ............................ 91 3.4.3 Spatial and temporal deixis in locative predicates . 92 3.5 Conclusion . 95 4 Towards a cross-linguistic definition of serial verb constructions 97 4.1 Introduction . 97 4.2 The typological definition of serial verb constructions . 101 4.2.1 Main verbhood . 102 4.2.1.1 Symmetricality . 103 4.2.1.2 Semantic shift and compositionality . 109 4.2.1.3 Non-main-verbs in SVCs . 112 4.2.1.4 Summary . 114 4.2.2 Monoclausality . 116 4.2.3 Single eventhood . 120 4.3 Parameters of variation . 127 4.3.1 Nuclear-layer and core-layer SVCs . 127 4.3.2 Argument sharing and semantic function . 129 4.3.3 Contiguity, wordhood, and marking of categories . 140 4.3.4 Number and ordering of verb roots . 147 4.4 Conclusion . 151 5 Overview of multi-verb constructions in Koro 154 5.1 Introduction . 154 5.2 Identifying SVCs in Koro . 155 5.2.1 Main verbhood . 159 5.2.2 Monoclausality . 173 5.2.3 Single eventhood . 178 iii Contents 5.2.4 Argument sharing . 189 5.3 Semantics of multi-verb constructions in Koro . 193 5.3.1 Directional and allative . 195 5.3.2 Associated motion, change of state, and imperfective . 201 5.3.2.1 Associated motion . 201 5.3.2.2 Change of state . 206 5.3.2.3 Imperfective aspect . 209 5.3.2.4 Discussion . 216 5.3.3 Durative and sequencing . 219 5.4 Conclusion . 220 6 Syntax of serial verb constructions in Koro 222 6.1 Introduction . 222 6.2 Background: Prior analyses of SVCs . 223 6.3 Directional and allative . 229 6.4 Associated motion, change of state, and imperfective . 244 6.5 Discussion: the interaction of syntax and semantics . 254 6.6 Conclusion . 256 7 Conclusion 258 A Description of texts 284 B List of speakers 298 C Maps of Los Negros Island 300 D List of languages in the typological survey 303 iv List of Tables 1.1 Koro independent personal pronouns . 12 1.2 Koro subject pronouns . 13 1.3 Koro numerals and numeral classifiers . 16 1.4 Consonant phonemes in Koro . 16 1.5 Vowel phonemes in Koro . 17 1.6 Working orthography for Koro . 18 2.1 Subject agreement paradigm for irrealis and perfect markers . 23 2.2 Surface positional slots in the Koro verbal clause . 24 2.3 Characterization of the major categories of tense and aspect (after Klein 1994) 30 2.4 Inflected forms of the perfect . 41 2.5 Inflected forms of the irrealis . 44 2.6 Comparison of contexts in which irrealis marking is expected in different types of systems . 47 2.7 Distribution of irrealis marking in Koro . 58 2.8 Comparison of contexts that trigger irrealis marking in Koro (irrealis = tem- porally non-specific) and Nanti (irrealis = unrealized) . 60 3.1 Morpho-syntactic properties of path and location predicates . 70 3.2 Root allomorphy of path and locative verbs . 71 3.3 Demonstrative enclitics and pronouns in Koro . 76 3.4 Deictic properties of locative predicates in Koro . 95 4.1 Characteristics of true SVCs . 100 4.2 Typology of SVC-like constructions, based on criterion of main verbhood . 115 4.3 Prototypical features of nuclear-layer and core-layer SVCs . 128 4.4 Common SVC types in Oceanic . ..
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