Verb-verb complexes in Irabu Ryukyuan

This chapter explores the V-V complexes in the Irabu dialect of Miyako Ryukyuan, spoken in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Two major classes of V-V complexes are identified: phrasal V-V complexes (Auxiliary Verb Constructions and Serial Verb Constructions) and one-word V-V complexes (lexical and syntactic compounds). After a detailed description of these structures, they are compared with the V-V complexes in Japanese. Finally, it is argued that the descriptive data of Irabu has implications for diachronic studies, especially the ongoing debate in Japanese historical linguistics with regard to whether one-word V-V complexes existed in Old Japanese.