Serial Verb Construction in Igasi

Existing studies on serial verb construction focus on its identification for pedagogical purposes, semantic denotations, and syntactic structures. Scholars in different African languages have used semantic and syntactic criteria for classification. However, none of the previous scholarly works have addressed the structures of serial verb construction in Ìgáṣí, an endangered language spoken in the Akoko North Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. This study examines serial verb construction in Ìgáṣí using both syntactic and semantic structures. The data for the research were sourced from the native speakers of the language, and their utterances were recorded for transcription. The study deploys the Minimalist Program for its analysis. Our findings show that serial verb constructions in Ìgáṣí are mono-clausal, and the actions or state of affairs conveyed by the verbs in SVC constructions show that they occur within the same temporal semantic frame. It is shown that verbs in SVC are symmetrical and asymmetrical based on the semantic and grammatical content. It is also argued that the subject DeterminerPhrase of SVC with causative and performative agents are generated at Spec-vP (outer core vP) while those with theme theta subjects are generated at Spec-VP (inner core VP). This study contributes to the existing studies on SVC and brings to the fore the documentation of an endangered language.