Aspect change in verb chains concerns the possibility of marking the second verb in a chain for imperfective aspect (usually with a progressive function) in spite of the fact that the first verb in the chain is marked – or zero-marked, as in many creoles – for perfective aspect. In these cases, the first verb refers to a story-line event, and the second verb refers to a backgrounded event.
Note that in this context, verb chain is understood as being similar to serial verb constructions (absence of overt marker of coordination, subor¬di¬nation, or syntactic dependency of any sort); but, in contrast to serial verb constructions, verb chains refer to two (or more) consecutive actions whereby the second verb does not modify the other verb in any way.
