Talmy’s typology in serializing languages: Variations on a VP

Abstract

Two types of resultative constructions that are unevenly distributed across languages (Talmy 2000) can be identified based on the lexicalization of manner and result meaning in the verbal main predicate: resultative secondary predication lexicalizes the manner component, while so called means constructions lexicalize the result component instead. However, this typology has been based primarily on non-serializing languages such as English and certain Romance varieties, in which the secondary manner or result predicate is necessarily non-verbal. This contrasts with resultatives in serializing languages, in which both the manner and result component are realized by verbal predicates, making it difficult to determine the underlying syntactic status of the respective predicates. By investigating the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of resultative serial verb constructions (RSVCs) in two serializing languages, Mandarin and Samoan, I argue that RSVCs are neither a uniform nor special phenomenon (contra Larson 1991; Slobin 2004), but show the same split observed in non-serializing languages. This observation has further implications on a unified configurational analysis of manner and result meaning within a syntactic account of event and argument structure building.

Keywords

• resultatives
• verb serialization
• secondary predication
• event decomposition
• Samoan
• Mandarin