Serial verb constructions, henceforth SVCs, are a type of construction
in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are juxtaposed without any
linker. This paper aims to study the properties of events expressed
by serial verb constructions in Thai. This paper limits its scope of
study to nongrammaticalized types of serial verb constructions. The
serial verb constructions under investigation are classified into the
following semantic types: (1) narrative SVCs, (2) resultative SVCs,
(3) manner SVCs, (4) posture SVCs, (5) directional SVCs, and (6) attitudinal
SVCs. This paper also compares and contrasts the events expressed by
the types of SVCs listed above and those expressed by semantically similar
coordinate and subordinate constructions. It is found that SVCs are
used to express closely related events which largely correspond to prototypical
scenes in the real world. If the verbs in SVCs are split and connected
by a coordinator or a subordinator in a coordinate construction or a
subordinate one, respectively, the new construction will either sound
odd or unacceptable. It is also argued in the paper that verb serialization
is a means for "elaboration of event". Finally, this paper
demonstrates that serial verb constructions in Thai exhibit many types
of diagrammatical iconicity.