One, but not the same: on complex event-formation in Igbo serial verb constructions

Abstract This paper presents the first formal event semantic analysis of two prominent types of serial verb construction (SVC) in Igbo (Benue-Congo), namely multi-event and sequential SVCs. Both SVC types are composed of two or more transitive verbs and appear to be similar on the surface, but they differ with respect to the property of internal argument sharing (Baker 1989). Based on the different formal semantic mechanisms proposed for complex event formation in the literature, we develop a catalogue of diagnostics for identifying the semantic mechanisms at play in different SVC configurations, both within and across languages. Applying the diagnostics to multi-event and sequential SVCs in Igbo, we show that the two SVC types come with different semantic properties, which correlate with the syntactic property of [+/−] object sharing. Whereas SVCs without OBJ-sharing denote conjunctions of proposition-denoting extended verbal projections, OBJ-sharing SVCs involve a tighter event construal, conceptualised as a complex process event or macro-event (Stewart in The serial verb construction parameter. McGill, New York, 1998; Pietroski in Causing Actions. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000; Events and Semantic Architecture. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005; Williams in Arguments in syntax and semantics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015a; Bohnemeyer et al. in Language 83(3):495–532, 2007). We propose a formal analysis of OBJ-sharing sequential SVCs as denoting complex events with quantificational substructure.