Die verb-serialisierung im Jabêm

Abstract

The intention of this study is to give a precise description of verbserialization in Jabêm, an Austronesian language spoken in New Guinea. Since the verb calls for a compulsory expression of person and time-aspect in Jabêm this language shows several phenomena realised at the surface which have to be treated in terms of deep structure in other languages with verbserialization. The theoretical framework given here to describe Jabêm may therefore be applied to other such languages as an adequate approach. We shall describe the phenomenon of verbserialization which we understand as the unmarked juxtaposition of two or more VPs in the context of gradual grammaticalization (or desemantification resp.). At a first level where there is no grammaticalization we can find the conjunction and the pivotal-construction. At a third level we can situate the serial unity which consists at most of three elements: the full verb and the two totally grammaticalized items of the coverb and the directional verb. These three elements together form a proper syntactic paradigm. Finally, we have to assign the resultative-construction which can share common features with both of the above mentioned levels to an intermediate level. If we furthermore make a distinction between adverbial and sentence-expanding verbserialization we can subsume the resultative-construction, the aspectmarkers, and the directional verbs under the former category, whereas the covers and the conjunctions belong to the latter category. Before we are going to describe verbserialization (in section 3) we have, however, to ask which factors may support the development of serial unities (in section 2). We can see that on the one hand verbs of location and of motion towards an aim can have a direct object and that on the other hand Jabêm tends to avoid trivalent verbs. The cooperation of these two factors seems to be characteristic not only for Jabêm, but also for most of the languages where verbserialization in combination with grammaticalization dan occur.