Book review of "Auxiliary Verb Constructions" by Gregory D.S. Anderson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

Auxiliary Verb Constructions is a comprehensive and authoritative study on the morphosyntax and historical development of auxiliary verb constructions (hereafter AVCs). Its focus is on inflectional marking on the two constituent verbs and on the way AVCs are related to other verb-verb constructions which are considered to be sources for AVCs. Thus serial verb constructions (hereafter SVCs), verb-complement constructions (hereafter VCCs), converb-main verb constructions as well as various (co)subordinate and coordinate constructions are closely examined and their link to AVCs discussed. The study reveals a wide array of formal variation of AVCs and it is a rich and accessible reference work. The coverage of the world's languages in the database is impressive: 800 languages are examined, whose names, linguistic classification and locality are listed in the appendix on pp. 390-410, reflecting the huge and meticulous work behind the book. A large number of African languages feature in the discussion (173 are included in the database). The large number of entries from certain "super-families", e.g. Bantu is "... not only because of the sheer size of the uni in question... but also because of the fact [that] there are extensive, developed, and varied systems of auxiliary verb constructions found..." (3). To add to this are perhaps earlier influential and extensive works on grammaticalization theory, on serial verb constructions and on historical-linguistics based largely on African languages.