Chapter 2 - The Serial Verb Constructions

Summary

The SVCs have a cluster of grammatical traits not derivable exclusively from UG, some of which have been misrepresented/misunderstood in the UG literature. The first functional void of UG is proposed which limits the lexicalization of a semantic relation R to only those cases where R connects first-order entities. All the characteristic properties of SVCs result from this functional void collaborating with the proposed Serial Verb Parameter (SVP) in the theory of the UG–iconicity interface. It also explains a wide range of related cross-linguistic facts, from phrasal SVCs to compounds, the parametric variations between Chinese and Gbe languages in (dis)allowing ditransitive V1, why the resultative SVC acts in a particular set of ways different from other types and the subtle disparities between head-initial and head-final SVCs, as well as the full range of variations among Kwa languages in object- and verb-fronting. The relation between the linearization pattern of UG and the iconicity-induced word order of SVCs is shown to pattern with the “high” and “low” neural pathways underlying fear, with implications on the nature of redundancy in biologically based systems and suggestive of an evolutionary connection between these two linearization mechanisms in language.