Serial verbs in modern standard Arabic

This paper aims to discuss serial verb constructions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It argues against the claim that this structure does not exist in MSA. We examined parallel structures in this paper: being verbs and what is called albadal ‘apposition’ in the traditional grammar of the Arabic language. This paper argues that the first structure should be analyzed as an auxiliary structure that contains two clauses, while the second structure should be analyzed as a serial verb structure as it denotes, among others, a complex situation, shares the same subject, and contains one clause. Finally, this paper provides a brief syntactic analysis for being verbs and serial verbs in MSA within the lexical functional grammar (LFG) framework, showing the differences between the two structures.

A Grammar of Nahavaq (Malakula, Vanuatu)

<p>This thesis is a descriptive grammar of Nahavaq, an Oceanic language spoken by about 700 people in the Sinesip cultural area of Malakula, Vanuatu. Nahavaq was previously undescribed, and this grammar is based on data collected by the researcher over a total of nine months in the Sinesip area. The thesis includes a sociolinguistic overview of the Nahavaq-speaking community and descriptions of phonetics, phonology, mophology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. Noteworthy features of Nahavaq include: (i) two classes of bilabial consonants, which are distinguished by palatalisation and velarisation; (ii) two reduplicative verbal prefixes, which partially overlap in function; (iii) a base-20 numeral system with subbases of five and ten; (iv) nouns which include an accreted article; (v) serial verb constructions; and (vi) nine different surface forms for expressing possession relationships. The attached DVD contains a Nahavaq-English glossary, along with recordings and transcriptions of Nahavaq texts for reference purposes.</p>

A Grammar of Nahavaq (Malakula, Vanuatu)

<p>This thesis is a descriptive grammar of Nahavaq, an Oceanic language spoken by about 700 people in the Sinesip cultural area of Malakula, Vanuatu. Nahavaq was previously undescribed, and this grammar is based on data collected by the researcher over a total of nine months in the Sinesip area. The thesis includes a sociolinguistic overview of the Nahavaq-speaking community and descriptions of phonetics, phonology, mophology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. Noteworthy features of Nahavaq include: (i) two classes of bilabial consonants, which are distinguished by palatalisation and velarisation; (ii) two reduplicative verbal prefixes, which partially overlap in function; (iii) a base-20 numeral system with subbases of five and ten; (iv) nouns which include an accreted article; (v) serial verb constructions; and (vi) nine different surface forms for expressing possession relationships. The attached DVD contains a Nahavaq-English glossary, along with recordings and transcriptions of Nahavaq texts for reference purposes.</p>

The issue of arbitrariness in syntactic reconstruction

Practitioners of syntactic reconstruction have not acknowledged that arbitrariness and iconicity influence syntactic change, and that they therefore need to be incorporated into methods of reconstruction. I argue that iconicity creates a directional tendency in syntactic change, privileging structures that are more iconic. I propose a method for incorporating this fact into methods of syntactic reconstruction. I demonstrate the application of this method on two pieces of reconstructed syntax: orientation serial verb constructions and left-peripheral topics. Both case studies are from Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages of Papua New Guinea. A third, briefer case study concerns Proto-Carib.

Serial verb constructions and covert coordinations in Edo – an analysis in Type Logical Grammar

Based on both syntactic and semantic criteria, Stewart (2001) and, following him, Baker and Stewart (1999), distinguish two types of serial verb constructions (SVC) and one type of covert coordination (CC) in Edo. In this article, we present an analysis of these constructions, using Type Logical Grammar (TLG) with an event-based semantic component. We choose as base logic the non-associative Lambek calculus augmented with two unary multiplicative connectives (NL(◊, □)). SVCs and CCs are interpreted as complex event structures. The complex predicates underlying these structures are derived from simple verbs by means of a constructor. SVCs and CCs differ in terms of which part of the complex event structure is denoted. For SVCs, this is the sum of all events in the structure whereas for a CC this is only the first event in the sequence. The two verbs in an SVC and a CC are treated asymmetrically by assuming that the first verb has an extended subcategorization frame. The additional argument is of type vp (possibly modally decorated). Constraints on word order and the realization of arguments are accounted for using structural rules like permutation and contraction. The application of these rules is enforced by making use of the unary connectives.