“Serial Verb Constructions” In Tshiluba

Serial verb constructions (SVCs), that is sequences of several consecutive verbs sharing certain features, form a well-established concept in descriptive and comparative syntax. However, there is no consensus concerning a systematic and universal definition of these constructions, leading authors like Bisang (2009) and Haspelmath (2016) to propose explicit criteria for their identification. Although Bantu languages are rarely described as containing SVCs, Tshiluba exhibits constructions that look suspiciously similar to them. This work therefore addresses two questions: (a) are these constructions SVCs in either Bisang’s (2009) or Haspelmath’s (2016) sense?; and (b) what are their key properties? Using various elicitation methods, I collected data indicating that these Tshiluba constructions conform to those definitions, and exhibit many properties which are usually associated with SVCs. Despite this evidence, further complications mean that these constructions remain ambiguous between serialization and asyndetic coordination, suggesting that we may be dealing with an on-going shift between the two (Andrason 2018), although further empirical confirmation is needed.