Serial Verbs in Oceanic A Descriptive Typology

Serial verb constructions are sequences of verbs placed one after another to express meanings which in other languages are typically expressed by means of single verbs. It has long been established that West African, Southeast Asian and Papuan languages are serializing languages, but the construction has only comparatively recently been recognized in Oceanic languages, which belong to a verylarge sub-group of the Austronesian family.Terry Crowley demonstrates that patterns of serial verbs can exhibit structural diversity even within a single language. He examines how serial verbs originate, investigating issues such as language contact and functional issues in language change. Serial verbs are often subject to reanalysis and this book investigates how they have developed new grammatical functions in different languages.Serial Verbs in Oceanic will interest typologists, those concerned with Austronesian languages in particular, and syntactic change in general, as well as linguists interested in Austronesian, language contact, linguistic typology, and syntactic change."Clear and concise...Serial Verbs in Oceanic is a very rewarding book to read. ... It is the breadth of coverage of topics in this book that is one of its biggest strengths, and what makes it so useful, particularly for those who are not primarily specialists in Ocean or Austronesian languages."--Linguist List`C. has to be commended for having put together, in the five historicalchapters, linguistic and sociohistorical data on Bislama that tremendouslyincreases our knowledge not only of the pidgin of Vanuatu, but of the otherMelanesian pidgins as well. This is a remarkable piece of historicallinguistics...one is amazed at the richness of data that the author was able tounearth.'Language, Vol 71 no 1'Crowley's portrait of Bislama history is an important contribution to P/Ctheoretical debate ... this book provides the most cpomplete synchronic anddiachronic description of any P/C to date ... It will be ignored by creolists attheir peril.'Chris Corne, iJournal of Pacific History/i, No. 2, 1992... excellent book ... Crowley has a lucid and easy style, provides abundant illustrative examples and presents his arguments with clarity. I found the book immediately enjoyable, which is not true of many linguistic works.'he lived in Vanuatu for a decade or more, speaking Bislama on a dailybasis; and he has published what has become the authoritative dictionary of thatlanguage ... The book is well presented, with examples clearly set out and withfootnotes at the bottom of each page rather than tucked away at the back ...this is an extremely valuable addition to the literature on Melanesian Pidginand on pidgin/creole studies generally. But it is more than that: Because of theattention paid to the effects on the language of interethnic contact and socialand political developments in Vanuatu, it is also a valuable contribution to thesocial history of the Pacific.'John lynch, University of the South Pacific, iPacific Studies/i, Vol. 16, No. 4,December 1993It is the breadth of coverage of topics in this book that is one of its biggest strengths, and what makes it so useful, particularly for those who are not primarily specialists in Oceanic or Austronesian languages ... Serial Verbs in Oceanic is a very rewarding book to read.Review from other book by this author 'Beach-la-Mar to Bislama': `anoutstanding contribution to our knowledge of the pidgin spoken in Vanuatu ...the study presents a comparative perspective from both a present-day and anhistorical point of view ... There is no doubt that Crowley has provided adetailed and provocative sociolinguistic study of a language which, up untilnow, has received limited attention.'iDiscourse and Society/i`Serial Verbs in Oceanic is an invaluable addition to the literature onserial verbs, and Crowley deserves full credit for contributing to a morebalanced representation of the distribution of SVCs across the languages of theworld.'Linguistic Society of New ZealandSerial verbs are a recently recognized construction in which a string of verbs or verb-like items is used to convey a single meaning within one clause, for example, 'go get your hair cut'. Though the construction is rare in English, it is common in many languages. This book shows what serial verbs are, where they are found (particularly in the Oceanic languages of the Pacific), and how current theory accounts for them. The author argues that their formation is a consequence ofcontact between different languages."Serial Verbs in Oceanic will interest typologists, those concerned with Austronesian languages in particular, and syntactic change in general, as well as linguists interested in Austronesian language contact, linguistic typology, and syntactic change."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedThis book describes the diversity of serial verb constructions within Oceanic languages. It has long been established that West African, Southeast Asian and Papuan languages are serializing languages, but the construction has only comparatively recently been recognized in Oceanic languages, which belong to a very large subgroup of the Austronesian family.This book describes the diversity of serial verb constructions within Oceanic languages. Serial verb constructions are sequences of verbs placed one after another to express meanings which in other languages are typically expressed by means of single verbs. It has long been established that West African, Southeast Asian and Papuan languages are serializing languages, but the construction has only comparatively recently been recognized in Oceanic languages, which belong to a very large sub-group of the Austronesian family.