The serial verb construction is a syntactic phenomenon common in many African and Asian languages. In this construction, two or more verbs can be juxtaposed in one clause, sharing the same subject, lacking conjunctive markings, resulting in a meaning that expresses the consecutive or simultaneous aspect of the actions of the verbs.
Example
Kofí trɔ dzo kpoo (Kofi turn-PERF leave-PERF quietly) Kofi turned and left quietly (Ewe, serial verb construction)
Verb Incorporation is one possible explanation for the apparent increase in arguments of the verb in (3), (5) and (7).
Constructions which attempt to incorporate a verb from a subject or adjunct clause can be expected to be unacceptable.
apo: first, the [-voice] [-nasal] stop /p/ in the verb corresponds to a prenasalized stop which is [+voice] [+nasal] in the affix; second, the affix lacks the initial vowel /a/ of the verb, reducing it to one syllable; and third, the affix, unlike the verb, is incapable of receiving primary stress.
A verb, however, even when it is polsyllabic and has multiple suffixes, can have a high tone only either on the first mora of the first syllable or the first of the the second syllable of the stem.
The metrical domain for verb tone rules is the first mora of the first object pronoun and the first mora of the verb stem for lexical tones and the first mora of the first object pronoun and the first mora of the second syllable of the verb stem.
The complex form consists of the preprefix, the subject pronoun, the tense-aspect-modality morphemes, the object markers, the reflexive pronoun -i-, the verb stem, the lexical verb extensions, the grammatical morphemes, the aspect marker and the postsuffixes -mó, -hó, or -yó.
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