On Double-Headedness and the Anatomy of the Clause*

We argue that the Minimalist view of phrase structure in Chomsky 1995 should be minimally extended to allow for phrases that have more than one head, so long as the two heads have the same category features and are not attracted by a higher head. This innovation results in an elegant typology of the various kinds of syntactically distinguishable serial verb constructions (SVCs) found in Edo and related West African languages, as discovered by Stewart (1998). In particular, we claim that the different SVCs come from different choices of which phrase in the clausal structure is doubly headed: Voice, light v, or V. Moreover, details of Edo syntax allow us to make some refinements to the theory of clause structure; these include showing that Kratzer’s Voice head is distinct from Chomsky’s v head, and showing exactly where agents, themes and goal phrases are generated. Empirical evidence for our claims comes from a variety of syntactic and semantic sources, but especially from the position and interpretation of various classes of adverbs.