Serial verb constructions in Akebu

Andrey Shluinsky
Institute of Linguistics RAS

Abstract. The paper deals with serial verb constructions in Akebu, an underdescribed Kwa language that has some peculiarities in contrast to other Kwa SVCs. At morphosyntactic level, first, expression of the subject in the morphological structure of each verb is discussed and, second, expression of TAM and negation that can be symmetrical, subjunctive or involve a special ‘adhabitual’ form. Functionally, Akebu SVCs express non-grammaticalized combination of (sub)events (rarely idiomatic) and of valency and aspectual meanings, both typical and specific. As for syntactic features, intonation contour, expression of common subject, wh- and focus extraction and non-trivial use of adverbial modifiers with any verb in a SVC are discussed.

Keywords: Akebu, Kwa, serial verb constructions, grammaticalization, clause structure

For citation: Shluinsky A. Serial verb constructions in Akebu. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2018. Vol. 1, iss. 1. Pp. 151–171. (In Rus.)