Abstract
This paper attempts to uncover some covert grammatical categories in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). These covert categories can be motivated in terms of specific types of construction. Some verbs are underspecified semantically; pinning down their specific and subtler meanings hinges on a range of constructions in which they occur. We also explore some more covert categories such as dynamicity and volitionality in other similarly underspecified verbs, and the semantic subtleties of some representative TSM words.