(By Hannah J. Haynie): "Clause-chaining involves sequences of medial clauses (i.e. formally reduced or restricted clauses that do not have the full marking that usually occurs on the verb) which are dependent on a single, fully inflected verb that often (but not always) occurs in final clause. Clause chains may also be referred to as topic chains or as sequences of medial clauses/medial verbs. Crucially, this construction involves a single clause with a full, unrestricted, finite verb form and medial clauses that are dependent on it for specification of inflectional categories (e.g. TAM). ❡
Clause chains are often used to describe sequences of events, and the medial verbs involved may be marked by special affixes to indicate temporal relationships. Clause chains may also include markers of switch reference. Medial verbs in some languages may be marked in the usual way for person/number of their arguments, though they generally lack some other canonical verbal inflection or involve specific marked verb forms that cannot be used in freestanding clauses. ❡
There is considerable debate regarding the syntax of clause chaining generally and within individual languages. This construction is not merely a series of juxtaposed minimal clauses, as it requires dependency on one fully specified clause for full interpretation. It is also not straightforwardly a series of subordinated clauses (as in the series of temporal adjuncts in English, Before he ate, while he was cooking the soup, he added salt.). The syntactic relationship between clauses in clause chains is often described as a special type of coordination or a form of cosubordination. ❡
In some cases clause-chaining may be difficult to distinguish from serial verb constructions. Remember that a serial verb construction involves a set of verbs or verb phrases that function as a single predicate, whereas clause-chaining involves a set of clauses with formally reduced verbs, all dependent on a single fully specified verb form. Clause-chaining is also different from verb compounding in that the clauses in clause chaining are phonologically independent and express separate propositions, which is not the case for verb compounding. In cases where it is unclear which of these constructions is represented by the examples in the grammar, a ? may be coded, but be sure to indicate in the comments that you were unable to determine which of these constructions is demonstrated in the relevant examples."