Unterladstetter V. Multi-verb constructions in Eastern Indonesia

Berlin: Language Science Press, 2020. — xviii, 452 p. — (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 28). — ISBN 978-3-96110-216-7.This book is the revised version of my doctoral dissertation, which I finished in early 2018. As dissertations go, I was more concerned with getting the details right than with creating an elegant textbook account of the topic, so that eventually I ended up writing more than 400 pages on multi-verb constructions — a result that was neither intended nor particularly encouraging to potential readers. Yet, while working on the phenomenon, it became more and more obvious to me that multi-verb strings represent such a complex and challenging issue that they are best illustrated with numerous examples from as many different languages as possible. Therefore, during revision of the chapters and sections, I made only moderate cuts so as to provide the reader with a rich set of data and abundant discussion. As it was felt that the sheer volume might put off those readers who merely wish to read an introduction to the topic, or who are interested in specific information, I have added a short summary to the book, explaining the hypotheses, research questions and decisions, and summing up the main arguments on which the conclusions are based.
Constructions with multiple verbal elements have posed a long-standing challenge to linguistic analysis. Most studies of verb serialisation have been confined to single languages rather than looking at crosslinguistic patterns. This book provides the first indepth account into the areal characteristics of multi-verb constructions (MVCs) in Eastern Indonesia. By collating published data and corpus data from 32 Austronesian and Papuan languages, it traces commonalities as well as differences in MVC use across the area. To this end, a sample of 2146 MVCs is analysed both from a grammatical and a semantic perspective. One of the main hypotheses is that the crucial driving force behind multi-verb construals is semantic interaction between the verbs, leading to four principal techniques of event formation: merging, staging, modification, and free juxtaposition. Combining semantic approaches with crosslinguistic data analysis, the book provides a new model of event interaction offering a fresh perspective on multi-verb constructions in Eastern Indonesia and beyond.