Towards a Generative Syntax of Serial Verb Constructions in Yoruba: New Theoretical Perspectives

Serial verb constructions, in which two or more verbs share arguments and tense-aspect-mood specifications without overt coordination or subordination morphology, represent one of the most theoretically challenging and cross-linguistically significant grammatical phenomena in West African languages. This dissertation develops new generative syntactic analyses of serial verb constructions in Yoruba, making an original theoretical contribution by proposing and defending a novel derivational account that resolves outstanding puzzles in existing analyses. Drawing on a corpus of serial verb constructions extracted from 100 hours of recorded naturalistic Yoruba discourse from Southwest Nigeria, supplemented by systematic acceptability judgment data from 80 native speakers, the study provides comprehensive empirical coverage of verbal serialisation patterns including result serials, instrument serials, purposive serials, and comitative serials. The theoretical framework integrates minimalist programme syntax with Distributed Morphology and cross-linguistic serial verb research. Existing generative analyses of Yoruba serial verb constructions by Baker and Stewart, Lefebvre, and Collins have left unresolved the argument sharing mechanism, the source of shared event semantics, and the interaction between serialisation and object shift. This dissertation makes an original theoretical contribution by proposing a unified derivational account based on a phase-based vP layering structure. Findings will resolve three long-standing theoretical puzzles in Yoruba serial verb syntax and generate new predictions about the boundaries of permissible serialisation. Recommendations will address Yoruba syntax pedagogy and the implications for typological theory of serialisation. Keywords: serial verb constructions, Yoruba syntax, generative grammar, minimalist programme, verbal serialisation.