A comparative study of English small clauses and Dagaare serial verbs

Abstract

In this paper, the results of a comparative study involving English small clause constructions and Dagaare serial verb constructions are presented. It is shown that while the two may exhibit different structures, there are some formal and functional overlaps between them. The object of the first predicate in either case is syntactically and semantically more prominent than the subject of the first predicate. Both constructions serve to express the causative and resultative parts of a complex event structure. Small clause constructions may be found in serializing languages but serial verb constructions are still more productive in such languages and often overlap with small clause constructions to express similar complex events.