Difference between revisions of "Multiverbs and Complex Predicates"

Revision as of 19:29, 18 December 2009

Edited by Gautam Sengupta and Lars Hellan

This page is an attempt at assembling and classifying cross-linguistically a variety of types falling into the categories 'multiverb constructions' (MVC) and 'complex predicates' (CP).

For MVCs, salient examples include,

from Bangla (Bengali):

from Akan:

and from Kistaninya (Kistane):

They have in common the expression of temporally successive events, patterns of argument and tense/aspect sharing, and lack of coordinating items, which is held as typical of 'serial verb' constructions. But they also differ in some respects:

In Bangla and Kistaninya, the last verb in the series has a different form than the preceding verbs, whereas in Akan they all have the same form. Although Bangla and Kistaninya have in common being 'verb last' languages, so that the last verb may be counted as being head of the constructions in question, and in Akan it is perhaps V1 which is head, that factor does not explain the difference in form between head and non-heads. Thus, we have to recognize the distinguishing factor I.1 below.

On the other hand, in Bangla only the last verb has a finite form, while the others are in an aspectually completive form. In contrast, in Kistaninya, all the verbs are finite; in this respect they are like in Akan, except for the special added suffix in all the non-final verbs (factor I.2):

I.

1. In the Akan example all verbs are in the same form, whereas in the Bangla and Kistaninya examples, the non-final verbs share a formative missing in the last verb.

2. In the Akan and Kistaninya examples, all verbs are finite, whereas in the Bangla example, only the last verb is finite.