The debate of the genesis of creole languages has been ongoing for many years. Although there are many theories that have been proposed, there are two that are the most polarized and have received the most amount of attention. These include universal theories and substrate theories. The central goal of the present paper is to investigate the role that serial verb construction (SVCs) can play in providing evidence for substrate influence in creoles. It does this by looking at the use of SVCs or lack thereof in the following creoles: Louisiana Creole, Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Palenquero. I provide evidence that demonstrates that the presence of SVCs in a creole depends on whether they can also be found in their substrate language. By doing this, I successfully prove that substrate influence plays a bigger role than suggested by universalist. / text