Complex predication and adverbial modification in Wagiman

ABSTRACT In many languages of northern Australia with coverb constructions, it is difficult to draw a distinction between predication and adverbial modification because coverbs appear to be both predicates and modifiers. We present evidence from Wagiman that a distinction between predication and modification can be drawn syntactically. We argue that Wagiman has two necessarily predicational positions and at least one adverbial position. One predicational position is obligatorily filled by the inflecting verb, the second can be filled by a coverb when it has a predicative function. The merger of this predicational coverb and the verb results in a complex predicate. A coverb can also be located in the adverbial position when it modifies the predicate. Using the minimalist framework, we test our proposal when two coverbs appear in the same clause, one adverbial and one predicational. This analysis has wider typological implications. We demonstrate that the novel adverbial analysis for clauses with two coverbs is also supported for other languages in the region.