Serial Verb Constructions in Saudi Arabic

—Serial Verb Constructions have obvious implications for both descriptive and theoretical linguists (e.g., Newmayer, 2004; Aikhenvald & Dixon 2006; Haspelmath 2016). One fundamental question is whether the criteria of Serial Verb Constructions are universal (Déchaine 1993; Newmayer 2004; Muysken & Veenstra 2006) or language-specific (Stewart 2001). This paper aims to investigate this debate by examining data from Saudi Arabic (Semitic language family), which has not been examined or compared as a serializing code with other constructions in other languages. Based on the most noticeable features of Serial Verb Constructions such as descriptive facts, syntactic and semantic features, the present study concluded that Verb + Verb combinations in Saudi Arabic could satisfy the relevant criteria of Serial Verb Constructions.