Serial Verb Constructions in Thai.

Abstract

This dissertation is concerned with a syntactic phenomenon frequent in Thai, namely, serial verb construction. In the linguistic literature people have proposed different definitions for the term serial verb construction. In this dissertation the term serial verb construction refers to the surface form in which more than one verb phrase follow each other in concatenations. Serial verb have been recognized as having many different functions. This dissertation is primarily the taxonomy of the functions of serial verbs. The data that this work is based on is the central dialect spoken in the capital of Thail and . I have found out that there are four major functions of serial verbs, which are listed as follows: (1) Complementing the initial verb. (2) Modifying the main verb in terms of direction and aspect. (3) Marking case relationships. (4) Indication of purposive and simultaneous actions. The underlying syntactic structures of serial verb constructions may vary as their functions vary. I basically reject the transformational analysis of serial verb constructions, which has been often proposed in the linguistic literature. Different properties of verbs in a serial verb construction are investigated. These properties include the linear order of verbs, the restrictions on types of verbs that can appear together in a string. This dissertation also has typological implications. Verb serialization is viewed as a linguistic mechanism doing the work which a speaker of a different language would consider "grammatical work". This grammatical work is effected by different linguistic mechanisms, such as the use of inflections, adverbs, and prepositions. One of my findings is that lexical verbs play a crucial role in the grammars of serial verb languages, such as Thai. The crucial role of lexical verbs results in the linguistic phenomenon of verb serialization.