Articles
Cleo Condoravdi and Paul Kiparsky (pp. 1–39)
Clitics and clause structure
Adamantios Gafos and Angela Ralli (pp. 41–73)
Morphosyntactic features and paradigmatic uniformity in two dialectal varieties of the island of Lesvos
Jan G. Kooij and Anthi Revithiadou (pp. 75–117)
Greek dialects in Asia Minor: Accentuation in Pontic and Cappadocian
Io Manolessou (pp. 119–148)
The Evolution of the Demonstrative System in Greek
Vassilios Spyropoulos and Irene Philippaki-Warburton (pp. 149–186)
‘Subject’ and EPP in Greek: The discontinuous subject hypothesis
State-of-the-Art Review Article
Angeliki Malikouti-Drachman (pp. 187–243)
Greek Phonology: A contemporary perspective
Book Reviews
Alexandra Georgakopoulou:
Narrative performances: A study of Modern Greek storytelling (Argiris Archakis)
G. Babiniotis (Peter Mackridge)
Clitics and clause structure
Cleo Condoravdi and Paul Kiparsky
In late Medieval Greek and many modern dialects, pronominal clitics are syntactically adjoined to an IP projection. In another set of dialects they have become syntactically adjoined to a verbal head. In the most innovating dialects (which include Standard Greek) they are agreement affixes. Extending the Fontana/Halpern clitic typology, we propose a trajectory of lexicalization from Xmax clitics via X0 clitics to lexical affixes. The evolution of clitic placement also reveals the rise of a composite functional projection þP.
Morphosyntactic features and paradigmatic uniformity in two dialectal varieties of the island of
Lesvos
Adamantios Gafos and Angela Ralli
This paper discusses data from the nominal paradigms of two dialectal varieties of East Lesvos, those of Thermi and Pamfila. It is shown that there is abundant evidence for the key role of the paradigm in the phonological realization of the [noun-clitic] clusters. We argue that the grammars of these dialectal varieties must crucially include constraints that require identity between related surface forms in the [noun-clitic] paradigm. This proposal has received considerable support by independent work, carried out mainly within Optimality Theory, in various languages. The Lesvian dialectal varieties, however, allow us to probe deeper into the precise statement of such intra-paradigmatic identity constraints. We show, first, that the identity con- straints holding among various surface forms must have a limited domain of application, circumscribed by the forms of the paradigm and only those. Second, we show that intra-paradigmatic identity constraints do not require identity uniformly among all surface forms of the paradigm. Rather, distinct identity constraints hold between distinct forms. For instance, the identity constraint between the {+first person, +singular} and the {+third person, +singular} is different from that holding between the {+first person, +singular} and the {+first person, +plural}. We argue, specifically, that the network of such intra-paradigmatic identity constraints is projected on the basis of shared morphosyntactic features along the dimensions of Person and Number that enter into the construction of the paradigm.
Greek dialects in Asia Minor: Accentuation in Pontic and Cappadocian
Jan G. Kooij and Anthi Revithiadou
In this paper, we discuss the relation between morphological structure and prosodic form in two Greek dialects of Asia Minor: Pontic and Cappadocian. Both dialects underwent a change at all levels of grammar under the influence of Turkish. Emphasis is on the gradual transition from fusional to agglutinative morphology displayed primarily by several dialectal groups of Cappadocian. We show that this morphological development had a profound impact on the accentual behavior of the dialects in question. A comparative analysis of both dialectal groups sheds light on some interesting aspects of the phonology-morphology interface such as the relation between type of morphology and mode of accentuation.
The Evolution of the Demonstrative System in Greek
Io Manolessou
The distribution of the Greek demonstratives, i.e. the available word order options, has remained constant throughout the history of the language, from Ancient to Modern Greek (henceforth AG and MG); however, the lexical items participating in it have not. Greek passes from a tripartite to a bipartite system, a cross-linguistically common development (Frei 1944: 119, Lyons 1999: 110). The facts and chronology of the evolution are known, but the causes behind it remain obscure. This paper attempts to explain them. The pivot of this account is the re-interpretation of the AG demonstrative system as relying mainly not on person distinctions but on distinctions of distance and deixis vs. anaphora. By comparing synchronic systems of the language, facts acquire a new significance and a unified picture emerges. It is also demonstrated that Greek constitutes a clear counter-example to cross-linguistically well attested grammaticalisation patterns concerning the evolution of demonstrative pronouns, which thus cannot be argued to have universal value. First, a short history of the process of lexical replacement is given, then an analysis of the AG demonstrative system is developed, and finally the new suggestions concerning the causality of the developments is elaborated.
‘Subject’ and EPP in Greek: The discontinuous subject hypothesis
Vassilios Spyropoulos and Irene Philippaki-Warburton
In the present study we examine the notion ‘subject’ in finite clauses in Greek, a null-subject language, and we investigate the connection between the rich morphological marking of subject-agreement on the verb and the definition of this notion. We propose that ‘subject’ in Greek should be analysed as a discontinuous element which consists of a null nominal element in the SpecTP position satisfying the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), associated with a pro at the relevant theta-position inside the VP. We argue that this analysis has not only the theoretical advantage of maintaining the universally strong value of EPP, but also, perhaps more importantly, the descriptive advantage of providing a satisfactory explanation for a number of apparent idiosyncrasies of Greek constructions.