Detail #64: An idea regarding serial verbs

In many languages, serial verb constructions serve a function not entirely unlike prepositions in other languages, e.g.

I take knife cut meat →I cut meat with knife

 A thing few conlangers realize is we can do some interesting things with this kind of construction. However, the following seems unlikely, since SVCs generally tend to either only mark TAM on one verb or have the same markings on both, cross-linguistically speaking.

I take.imperfect knife cut meat → I cut meat with a knife

I take.perfect knife cut meat →I cut meat with the knife

 The notional difference here being that there's a greater likelihood for the object of perfects and perfectives to be definite than for imperfect and imperfective verbs' objects. However, we can go about this differently, and maybe do a lexical, rather than TAM-related distinction:

I take knife cut meat → I cut meat with a knife

I wield knife cut meat → I cut meat with the knife

I cook banana give friend → I prepare a banana for a friend

I sautee banana provide friend →I prepare the banana for the/my friend

The notion being that a more specific kind of verb is more likely to have an object that is definite than a more generic kind of verb. Specificness of a verb would basically amount to whether it basically semantically covers a smaller set of possible actions than the other. Sauteeing something implies cooking it, hence cooking is less specific.

For non-SVCs, this lexical way of marking definiteness would not apply.