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In the past, I have come across several examples of ～たり～たり seemingly being
used with other final verbs than する, which is generally taught to be mandatory
at the end of ～たり～たり phrases.

Is this grammatically acceptable?

Here are some example phrases from some quick googling:

  * 立ったり座ったり働く
  * 話したり笑ったり食べる

Also, these seem to be describing that final verb. They could be rephrased (as
I understand them) as Vながら～たり～たりする, or something to that effect. Am I
understanding this correctly?

**Edit #1**

As [@snailboat pointed out in
chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/12351966#12351966), my
interpretation of these can also be rephrased as:

  * 立ったり座ったりして働く
  * 話したり笑ったりして食べる

Is this what those mean? Or are they, for example, 立ったり座ったり働いたりする?

My feeling is that they mean the former. However, one example I found which I
feel could go either way is 「のんびりしたりうろついたり食べるのが好きです」. I'm not really sure how
to interpret that one.

**Edit #2**

Can this also be done with adjectives? I have come across several examples:

  * 可愛かったり美しい
  * ダルかったりキツい日
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grammar verbs
Can ～たり～たり end with verbs other than する?
I will be honest. Both 立ったり座ったり働く and 話したり笑ったり食べる sound very wrong and strange
(if the phrases actually end like that). I do not even understand what either
of the two means --- specifically, I do not understand the relationship
between the first two actions and the third action described in each phrase.

If the two phrases (I could not even call them sentences) were meant to be
what Snailboat (or is it you?) said they were, then they are still incorrect
and highly unnatural.

To summarize so far :

立ったり座ったり働く makes no sense. It does not mean anything.

立ったり座ったりして働く makes perfect sense. Your job requires sitting down and standing
up (repeatedly).

立ったり座ったり働いたりする makes little to no sense because it means "(I) stand up, sit
down, work and things like that."

Moving on, 「のんびりしたりうろついたり食べるのが好きです」 makes sense in informal speech. I do not
like to bring grammar into a discussion of colloquial speech but the sentence
would be much clearer if the 食べるのが part were replaced with 食べたりするのが. The
sentence means "I like doing things like chilling out, wandering about and
eating."

Finally, 可愛かったり美しい makes little sense without a noun at the end. Even with a
noun, it still is sloppy colloquial speech. Many Japanese-learners seem to
like to use たり these days but not many of them seem to know that it makes what
they say sound very informal.

ダルかったりキツい日 is of course "correct" colloquially.
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First of all I would like to point out that apart from する, なさる and できる and
other する-ish verbs are also game.

Second of all, it is important to note that ～たり～たり is a 終止形 construction and
thus supposedly forms a bracket of a complete idea or sentence. 終止形 usually
doesn't interact with anything specifically outside of itself, but when it
does it tends to act like a nominalization that can at times form compound
nouns and at other times like a quotation bracket.

My classical dictionary actually mentions this nominalization as an argument
for why たり is paired with する. The very similar construction ～ぬ～ぬ is -not-, and
the logic behind this is that it is not volitional, so it conflicts with する,
and ends up just attaching to a verb that describes its action: "浮きぬ沈みぬ揺られければ"

There are several examples in my dictionaries that have ～たり～たり and ～つ～つ (which
たり is derived from) that are not directly connected with する, but instead they
are succeeded by a noun phrase that is equivalent to their action:

"僧都（そうづ）乗っては下りつ、下りては乗っつ、あらまし事をぞし給ひける" == 僧都は乗っては降りたり、降りては乗ったり、乗りたがっている事をしました。

"掃いたり抜（ぬご）うたり、塵拾い、手づから掃除せられけり" == 掃いたり抜いだり、塵拾い、自分の手で掃除しました。

However, the volitional nuance for つ/たり is completely lost in modern Japanese
as ぬ is completely gone, so it's not worth going into any further.

Now, moving on, your first two examples have serious problems.

立ったり座ったり働く

I searched "立ったり座ったり働く" and got "立ったり、座ったり、働くときの姿勢..." - This is perfectly
correct. Looking at the former phrase, it is disjointed because there is
nothing connected between 立ったり／座ったり／働く (it would be "I stood, I sat, I work"
in an archaic sounding Japanese), but as you can see in the latter phrase,
this is exactly how it's supposed to be. In other words, the parts of the
phrase interact like this: 立つこと、座ること、（などの）働くときの姿勢...

話したり笑ったり食べる

I searched "話したり笑ったり食べる" and got "自信を持って話したり、笑ったり、食べる事が出来る". - This is again
perfectly valid, if not a little strange. It equates talking and laughing with
the act of eating, but I suppose in a way that makes sense. After all it's not
like anyone needs confidence to eat. (Extracting the たりｓ gives you
自身を持って食べる事が出来る.) It is in regards to the act of eating.

可愛かったり美しい

First of all 可愛かったり、美しい人 is not really equivalent to 可愛かったり美しかったりする人. I would
assume it is closer to: 可愛かったり、いや、取り敢えず美しい人. It's more nuance than anything
else, especially in this case, but without する, 可愛かったり is properly disjointed
from 美しい. That is my academic argument, but the realistic one is that because
saying something like 可愛かったり美しかったりする人, or 可愛かったり綺麗だったりするもの is just too much of
a mouthful for some people. It probably just got なきゃ'd from it's original
なければならない. Again, this is partially possible because without much of a stretch,
it still makes sense grammatically but with a different but not quite as
important nuance.

ダルかったりキツい日

I again use my former argument: "だるかったり、(取り敢えず)キツい日" キツい irregardless of
whether the reason for that is it being だるい or not. - I did not find any
examples of this on Google though.
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I found this sentence in a book. I believe the book was 生きている心臓（上）by 加賀乙彦.

>
> 横顔が妙に青白い。呼吸が浅く、早くなった。救急隊員が酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり、忙しく働いているそばで、蝶子は、有作が意外に重傷で、助からぬのではないかと不安になった。

You said "These [~tari verbs] seem to be describing that final verb." I had
the same feeling when I read that sentence from my book. 酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり
seems to be describing 忙しく働いている. Maybe you could also say that
酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり are two examples of the actions that make up the
contents of 忙しく働いている.
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Both interpretations are entirely possible, depending on which part you decide
was omitted:

  1. ### Aたり / Bたり(するなど) / C

Doing C, such as doing A and such as doing B.

(The `〜するなど` here can also be `〜するとか`, `〜するなんて`, or more broadly, `〜して`)

  2. ### Aたり / Bたり / C(たりする)

Doing things such as A, such as B, and such as C.

**Possibility #1** may seem more “grammatically acceptable” to you, as you may
already be familiar with other instances of this kind of omission:

  * 立ったり 座ったり(して) 何してるの？
  * 眠いのかな。あくびしたり 黙ったり(して)。
  * 走ったり 飛んだり(して) 疲れるわ。
  * 仕事を探したり お金を借りたり(して) どうにか暮らすよ。
  * ふざけた顔をしたり(して) 面白い人だ。

**Possibility #2** fares worse in terms of “grammatical acceptability”, but my
notion is that certain liberties are taken with lists. I believe in English
you are taught to prefix the final item of a list with “and/or”, but don’t you
see them omitted quite often? Sometimes the “and/or” is unnecessary because
the sentence ends there. And even when there's a clause after it, don't you
usually grok where the list ends, or at least get the gist?

  * I do things like lie down, read, (or) chill out — simple things.
  * The moon was shining, shimmering, (and) splendid.
  * He could be running, walking, (or) listening to music, and he enjoyed every minute of it.
  * She asked, begged, (and) pleaded, but for what good?

When you omit the final `〜たりする`, sentences can be much shorter while still
getting the overall point across. This omission is becoming quite common, even
in newscasts, but technically it is incorrect and frowned upon by
authoritative institutions
([source](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/kotoba/gimon/154.html)). Don’t
do it on a grammar test.

  * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読んだりすることが好き ← So correct and yet so wordy
  * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読んだりするのが好き
  * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読むのが好き ← Shorter

More examples of this type of omission:

  * 寝る前はTV見たり、歯磨いたり、日記を書く。
  * 夏休みは海に行ったり、山に行ったり、里に行った。
  * 部屋を片付けたり、シャワーを浴びたり、服を選んでたら遅れちゃった。
  * 熱が出てたり、頭が痛かったり、のどが腫れてるので風邪だと思う。
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When a verb comes after (another verb) たり, you expect the verb should be
followed by たり。

> 立ったり座ったり働く

sounds wrong because it doesn't match the expectation. You cannot tell whether
して is missed (立ったり座ったりして働く) or たりis missed (立ったり座ったり働いたり). But

> 立ったり座ったり忙しく働く

makes sense because 忙しく works like して. 立ったり座ったり explain how 忙しく. But, strictly
speaking, this is not grammatically correct.

Similarly

> のんびりしたりうろついたり食べる

sounds wrong but

> のんびりしたりうろついたり食べるのが好きです

is OK because, by adding のが好きです, you can easily figure out 食べる is part of たり
phrases. Again, this is not grammatically correct.

Note: because they are grammatically incorrect, their interpretations greatly
depend on the meanings of verbs in たり phrases. For example,

> そば屋に行ったりラーメン屋に行ったり食べるのが好きです。

apparently means

> そば屋に行ったりラーメン屋に行ったりして食べるのが好きです。
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