Multi-Verb Constructions: A View from the Americas (review)

This is the fruit of a miniconference in Europe in 2008 on South American verb serialization and related constructions. It is a hemispheric follow-up to Dixon and Aikhenvald (2006). In addition to an introduction by Aikhenvald (pp. 1–26) and six papers on South American languages, three papers on North and Central American languages were commissioned for the volume.

The organization and content are standardly typological with some diachronic extensions. A construction type is identified in bottom-up (morphosyntactic) rather than in top-down (functional, cognitive) fashion. Here, a multiverb construction is defined as juxtaposition of two or more verbs in a more or less monoclausal construction. Instances are subclassified by selectional symmetry vs. asymmetry, morphological marking, adjacency vs. nonadjacency, position and form of arguments, and to a lesser extent prosody. The array of subtypes in each featured language is documented. Classificatory squishiness, and cognate relationships between independent verbs and grammaticalized elements (auxiliaries, compound elements), are often ascribed to progressions along recurrent paths of change (grammaticalization theory). In several papers, comparative data from sister languages are extensively presented and their diachronic implications discussed.

After Aikhenvald’s introduction (pp. 1–26), the substantive papers (in north-to-south sequence) are Tim Thornes, “Dimensions of Northern Paiute Multi-Verb Constructions” (pp. 27–61); David Beck, “Lexical, Quasi-Inflectional, and Inflectional Compounding in Upper Necaxa Totonac” (pp. 63–106); J. Diego Quesada, “The Grammar of Teribe Verb Serialization in a Cross-Chibchan Perspective” (pp. 107–31); Muysken, “Multi-Verb Constructions in Ecuadorian Quechua” (pp. 133–56), Katja Hannß, “Desiderative Verb Sequences in Uchumataqu” (pp. 157–83); Pilar Valenzuela, “Multi-Verb Predicates and Transitivity Harmony in Shipibo-Konibo” (pp. 185–212); Sebastian Drude, “‘Derivational Verbs’ and Other Multi-Verb Constructions in Awetí and Tupí-Guaraní” (pp. 213–54); Rik van Gijn, “Multi-Verb Constructions in Yurakaré” (pp. 255–81); and Katharina Haude, “Movima Phasal Verbs” (pp. 283–305). A leitmotiv is the special status of phase (‘begin’, ‘finish’), motion-direction (‘go’, ‘come’), and existential-locational (‘be’, ‘stay’) verbs, whose grammatical specialization may or may not be reflected in formal reduction.

An approximate typological or diachronic sequence begins with (a) clearly biclausal sequences such as main clause plus adverbial clause (“converb”), and (b) more or less loose serial constructions that hover between biclausal and monoclausal status (the verbs are usually adjacent and prosodically connected, one verb may lack full inflection). Then (b) can develop into either (c) verb-verb compounds (often symmetrical), or (d) auxiliary-like constructions with one verb functionally grammaticalized. Pattern (c) might then evolve into derivational affixation, pattern (d) into either derivational or inflectional (e.g., aspectual) affixation.

Patterns (b) and (c) are the trickiest typologically, (b) because of its transitional nature and (c) because compounding is normally associated with noun-noun or noun-verb combinations that are fused into single stems or words. The distinction between (a) and (b) is central to van Gijn’s paper on Yurakaré, where biclausal sequences have full pronominal and tense-aspect-modality inflection on both verbs, and mark same or different subject. In partial contrast to this, in “coordinate” multiverb constructions, the first verb keeps its independent prefixal inflection (including object pronominals), but it is stripped of its suffixes (subject pronominals, tense-aspect-modality), and it lacks an overt same-subject marker, although subject coindexation is normally required. For Northern Paiute, Thornes subtly distinguishes (b) in the form of “secondary verb” constructions (here, a rather fused serialization) and verb-verb compounds (c), noting that the applicative suffix occurs in different positions in the two. Beck distinguishes Totonac “lexical” verb-verb compounds from a range of inflectional and quasi-inflectional verb-verb compounds. Drude argues for an expansive definition of “derivation,” extending it to a productive gerund-like construction in Awetí, even though the two verbs need not be adjacent. He therefore has little use for the modular distinction between morphology and syntax (hear, hear...