As Seiss (2009) observes, while it is relatively
straightforward to identify cross-linguistic criteria
for distinguishing light verbs from auxiliary verbs,
it is less obvious what cross-Âlinguistic criteria distinguish
light verbs from serial verbs. Auxiliary verbs add temporal/aspectual/voice
information to the event semantics of the main verb
and occupy the opposite pole of the grammaticalisation
continuum to lexical verbs. In contrast, light verbs
and serial verbs are less clearly distinct, since both
can function as independent lexical verbs, and both
participate in forming complex predicates within monoclausal
structures. Furthermore, Butt (2010) describes light
verbs as modifying the main verb’s event semantics by
contributing meanings including causative, resultative,
benefactive, agentive, meanings that are coextensive
with those of serial verbs. However, while light verbs
are form identical to full verbs, resisting grammaticalisation
and remaining stable in terms of frequency of use (Butt
2010, Traugott 1999), serial verbs have a tendency to
grammaticalise into prepositions (Lord 1993).
We present a case study focusing on five high-frequency
verbs in Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE), based on a small
(100,000-word) corpus of consisting of (i) spoken CPE
(Ayafor, Green and Ozón, in prep.), (ii) existing published
sources (Ayisi & Longinotto 2005; Bellama et al. 2006;
Todd 1979), and (iii) elicited examples. Focusing on
the verbs ‘make’, ‘do’, ‘give’, ‘get’ and ‘take’, we
find evidence for a productive light verb strategy and
observe that, due to the high degree of multifunctionality
in a contact language, a subset of these high frequency
verbs participates both in light verb constructions
(LVCs) (1) and in serial verb constructions (SVCs) (2).
We also find evidence for the grammaticalisation of
mek ‘make’ as a marker of deontic modality.
Our findings indicate that while light verbs and serial
verbs share some overlapping properties (semantic bleaching,
resistance to formal reduction, contribution of arguments),
they are distinguished by (a) the ability of light verbs
to co-occur with non-verbal predicates, and (b) their
position on the grammaticalisation continuum:
MAIN VERB |
LIGHT VERB |
SERIAL VERB |
AUXILIARY VERB |
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