Transitivity and valency: from theory to acquisition

Abstract

Since the 1970s, serial verb constructions (SVCs) have been discussed widely in African, Oceanic and many other languages in different parts of the world. This paper gives an overview of the most important generalizations about serial verb constructions that have been proposed and that do seem to hold if a sufficiently restrictive definition of the concept is adopted. The main problem of the earlier comparative literature is that the notion of a SVC has not been delimited clearly, and/or has been formulated in much too wide terms. This can be seen as a result of the confusion between comparative concepts and natural kinds: Serial verb constructions have (most often implicitly) been regarded as natural kinds (universal categories), so that phenomena in additional languages were regarded as SVCs even when they had somewhat different properties. This procedure inevitably leads to a fuzzy and very broad understanding of the concept, with a prototype structure that does not allow falsifiable claims. Here I propose a narrow definition of SVC and formulate ten universals that are apparently true of all serial verb constructions in this narrow sense.