A reanalysis of so-called serial verb constructions in Thai, Khmer, Mandarin Chinese, and Yoruba

This dissertation presents an investigation of the so-called serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Thai, Khmer, Mandarin Chinese and Yoruba, and provides a subcategorization of the so-called SVCs of each language. The reanalysis of the syntactic properties of the so-called SVCs provides within the principles and constraints of the lexicase version of dependency grammar.;Review of the previous studies of SVCs show that the analyses do not distinguish serial verb constructions from what are normally considered as infinitival complement constructions. It is proposed here that in fact there is no linguistic basis for establishing a special serial verb construction which is distinct from ordinary complement and coordinate constructions. This dissertation emphasizes two things: (1) The dependency analysis proposed in this dissertation makes and supports the claim that the second verb in the SVCs can be analyzed either as a nonfinite complement of a main verb or as the head of a nonfinite coordinate clause. (2) The examination of particular lexical items in these constructions gives rise to a reanalysis of some second 'verbs' as derived adverbs in Thai and Khmer and as derived prepositions in Mandarin Chinese.