"Kot nou vire tourne nou tand li" Serial Verb Constructions at the Interface between Grammar and Culture: Case-Study Kreol Seselwa (Seychelles Creole)

Abstract

Th is paper investigates the form and function of Verb Chains and Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Kreol Seselwa (Seychelles Creole, KS), a French-based Creole language spoken in the Indian Ocean. Prior to Bickerton’s seminal paper in 1989, it was widely assumed that Serial Verb Constructions were not part of KS grammar. More recent studies (Adone 2012; Syea 2013a, 2013b; Gabel 2018) have shown that these constructions do exist in Indian Ocean Creoles and in KS. Likewise, in this paper, we will demonstrate that from a typological perspective, prototypical as well as non-prototypical SVCs can be found in KS. In our analysis, we provide evidence that an ethnosyntactic framework can account for certain SVCs in KS. We argue that their form and function can be accounted for by cultural logic hence stressing the link between grammar and culture.