Complex Predicates in Oceanic Languages (Empirical Approaches to Languagge Typology) (German and English Edition)

This volume provides new data for typological studies and contributes a detailed investigation of the "nuclear" type of complex predicates in Oceanic languages. This VV pattern may correspond to two different syntactic structures, either co-ranking or hierarchized (head-modifier). It appears to be compatible with all types of basic word orders, thus contradicting the generalizations which correlate "nuclear" serialization with verb-final order. Part 1 contains two synthetic articles on the research of serial verbs in Austronesian languages, as well as detailed case studies of complex predicates in various Oceanic languages. Part 2 concentrates on some processes leading to the grammaticalization of serialized verbs into clitics or adpositions.