Walman and-verbs and the Nature of Walman Serialization

The so-called and-verbs of Walman, described recently in Brown and Dryer (2008), are of a crosslinguistically unusual mixed category. They are morphologically verbs, but they serve to coordinate noun phrases and their maximal projections are noun phrases. This paper uses a Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) framework to compare Walman and-verbs to Walman transitive verbs, demonstrating the similarity between these two categories. Evidence for this similarity comes from the fact that Walman transitive verbs participate in inclusory serial constructions, in which the subject of one verb is the combined subject and object of the previous verb. It is argued therefore that all Walman transitive verbs must be able to coordinate their arguments in f-structure just as Walman and-verbs do. Thus and-verbs, while unexpected crosslinguistically, fit into the grammar of Walman relatively comfortably. The paper concludes with a brief commentary on the utility of an LFG-like framework as a tool for descriptive linguistics.