Serial verbs (*take X come Y put* = Engl. ‘bring X to Y’) are widely found in the languages of the world. Although descriptive work of the last decades gathered more and more data from previously unrecognised languages, today we are facing the “SVC challenge”. Scepticism is uttered frequently about whether we are dealing with a unified phenomenon across languages. In this talk, I propose a change of perspective from a structural **to a more usage-based view** on serial verb constructions. I offer a variety of examples from Muyu - an Ok language of West New Guinea - arguing that speakers have a certain degree of freedom in their usage of serial verb constructions. Definitional (i.e. structural) features merely tell us one part of the story. Future research has to take into account discourse structuring devices from intonation, tail-head linkage, discourse particles, etc. We can expect Muyu not to be exceptional in the interaction of serial verb constructions with usage-based phenomena. (The talk is offered as **self-running power point** presentation. Just open the slides and press F5.) Interaction moment: Monday, 31. August, 16.10-16.20 Interaction tool: Zoom (general session) Interaction ID / Password: to be found from 25 August on www.societaslinguistica.eu/interaction Notes from the author: Besides looking forward to an interesting discussion in the general session, I'd be happy about some feedback about my presentation. Feel also free to use the comment function top right. Contact: Alexander Zahrer - a.zahrer@uni-muenster.de