| Linguists have various opinions about serial verb constructions (SVCs). The result of my analysis indicates that the so-called SVCs in Chinese are not any different from verb constructions in languages such as English, except that there are no overt conjunctions, complementizers, or other grammatical markers between verbs in a series to show how they are related. Thus the term Serial Verb Construction is only a taxonomic artifact.;Some linguists claim that SVCs in serializing languages are so fundamentally different from verb constructions in non-serializing languages such as English that they do not obey the principles of Universal Grammar, and that clauses containing such constructions are not analyzable as either coordinate or subordinate. My analysis shows that there are two basic types of SVCs in Chinese, coordinate and subordinate, within either of which there is a wide range of structural variation. My analysis further shows that Government and Binding Theory can adequately explain SVCs, without necessitating additional principles. Furthermore, whereas coordinate SVCs are double-headed structures, the same is not true of subordinate SVCs.;This dissertation first reviews the literature on SVCs. It then analyzes SVCs in Chinese, within the framework of Government and Binding Theory. |
