The placement of the two verb phrases in a series is sometimes flexible. Such flexibility is shown in the possibility for either verb to take a perfective marker Le (了) or negation marker bù (不).
他在廚房裡喝咖啡看報
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı h¯e k¯af¯ei k`an b`ao/ He is drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the kitchen.)
他在廚房裡看報喝咖啡
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı k`an b`ao h¯e k¯af¯ei/ He is reading the newspaper and drinking coffee in the kitchen.)
他在廚房裡看了報喝咖啡
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı k`an -le b`ao h¯e k¯af¯ei/ He read the newspaper and drank coffee in the kitchen)
他在廚房裡看報喝了咖啡
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı k`an b`ao h¯e-le k¯af¯ei/ He read the newspaper and drank coffee in the kitchen)
他在廚房裡不喝咖啡看報
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı b`u h¯e k¯af¯ei k`an b`ao/ He is not drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the kitchen.)
他在廚房裡喝咖啡不看報
(t¯a z`ai ch´uf´ang l˘ı h¯e k¯af¯ei b´u k`an b`ao/ He is drinking coffee (but) not reading the newspaper in the kitchen.)
The syntactic relationship between the two VPs in this type of serial-verb construction is perhaps parallel to each other.
Reference: Chinese: a linguistic introduction by Chao Fen Sun
