Talk:Serial verb construction

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Sorry, I can't make head or tail of this article. Did the people who wrote this article have knowledge of serial verbs, or did they just make it up themselves.

For example, serial verbs are supposed to be a syntactic phenomenon (definition at the start). But look at these:

1) Chinese:


 * The Chinese example given, lǎo.hǔ yǎo-sǐ le zhāng, is a resultative verb construction.


 * In the examples section, the Chinese example given is:

我(I) 坐(sit) 飞机(aircraft) 从(from) 上海(Shanghai) 到(to) 北京(Beijing) 去(travel)

These are totally different kinds of construction! What exactly is a standard "serial verb" construction in Chinese? Do the people who wrote this think that two verbs in a clause, no matter how syntactically related, are by definition "serial verbs"?

2) Japanese

The first example given in Japanese is NOT a syntactic construction; it's a word-building construction:

With the first verb in the continuative form (連用形 ren'yōkei): 押し通る (oshi tōru) 'I'm pushing through!' in which oshi is the 'continuative' form of osu (push) and tōru (pass; get through) is the finite form whose present tense and indicative mood get read back onto oshi. 出来る (dekiru, to come out) → 出来上がる (deki-agaru, be completed) This construction is more classical or literary and is less freely productive today. No verb arguments can come between the two verbs.

Can the writer point to sources which state that this kind of construction is known as a "serial verb" in linguistics?

Would be grateful for any kind of clarification.

Bathrobe (talk) 09:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I came here in 2011 and I am just as confused and have the same comments as you. To be honest though "Serial Veb" is a pretty vague definition, and some more fringe definitions would include the above, but yea, they should probably put more prototypical examples.

74.14.98.110 (talk) 01:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Another decade one and I’m still confused. How are they different from the English examples? Come take, go see, they seem to fit the descriptions just as wel. ~elcisitiak~ (talk) 15:45, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The Tatar examples are glossed incorrectly: (2a) китап сатып алдым . . . kitap satyp aldym . . . book buy.CP TOOK.1sg (2b) китап саттым . . . kitap sattym . . . book bought.1sg It should be: (2a) . . . book sell.CP TOOK.1sg =I bought a book. (2b) . . . book sold.1sg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.54.111.69 (talk) 11:02, 18 July 2013 (UTC)