Papers by Eleni Karantzola
A syntactic feature that characterizes Early Modern Greek is the " pleonastic " usage of the comp... more A syntactic feature that characterizes Early Modern Greek is the " pleonastic " usage of the complement conjunction óti or pos with the mood (" subjunctive ") particle na, as well as the co-presence of the complementisers óti and pos. These co-occurrences are ungrammatical in Modern Greek, while in vernacular Late Medieval and Early Modern Greek texts they are sufficiently attested. In this paper we record a large number of instantiations of the {óti / pos} + na / óti + pos structures in order to trace the conditions of their occurrence; the examples come from extended prose texts of the 16th century as Kartanos' " Palaia te kai nea Diathiki " (Kakoulidi-Panou 2000) or Morezinos' " Klini Solomontos " (Kakoulidi-Panou et al. 2007), as well as an anthology of demotic prose texts of 16th century edited by Kakoulidi-Panou, Karantzola & Tiktopoulou (in press). Keywords Early Modern Greek – subordination – complementation – Balkan languages * Special thanks are due to Ioannis Fykias and Isabella Greisinger (both at the University of Salzburg) for their valuable remarks. We also cordially thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments that contributed substantially to our improving this paper.
The article focuses on the investigation of the function and distribution of certain complementat... more The article focuses on the investigation of the function and distribution of certain complementation markers in Early Modern Greek. The quantitative analysis of these phenomena can indicate patterns of complement markers usage which are determined by factors such as dialectic or stylistic variation. Moreover, it is emphasized that thorough investigation within a larger corpus is decisive for the study of morphosyntactic change since this reveals minor cases of phenomena which may otherwise remain unnoticed, although they may be important to better comprehend how structures emerge, get established or become obsolete in the diachrony of a given language.
This paper considers labile verbs, i.e., verbs that use the same morphology for the causative and... more This paper considers labile verbs, i.e., verbs that use the same morphology for the causative and the anticausative reading, and how this lability pattern has evolved and spread in relation to case alignment and, specifically, to the lack of case distinctions between the nominative and the accusative with neuter DPs.
In the first part of the study, we examine the voice distinctions in the history of the Greek language, showing that the use of the same voice morphology (i.e., active) for causative and anticausative readings increases in Hellenistic Greek
and spreads progressively until Early Modern Greek, as indicated by empirical evidence in dialectal texts. The second part of the study attributes this pattern to the lack of the nominative-accusative case distinction in neuter nouns that in turn can be interpreted as either objects of a transitive (causative) verb or subjects of an intransitive verb (anticausative). In this aspect, neuter nouns demonstrate a
type of split ergativity in the Greek labile alternations which thus require a split ergativity analysis based on DP features.
Ε ΙΝΑΙ ΓΝΩΣΤΟ ΟΤΙ Η ΜΕΛΕΤΗ της πρώιμης νεοελληνικής έχει στηριχτεί σχεδόν αποκλειστικά σε έμμετρα... more Ε ΙΝΑΙ ΓΝΩΣΤΟ ΟΤΙ Η ΜΕΛΕΤΗ της πρώιμης νεοελληνικής έχει στηριχτεί σχεδόν αποκλειστικά σε έμμετρα και δευτερευόντως σε πεζά / αφη γηματικά λογοτεχνικά κείμενα, ενώ μικρή σημασία έχει δοθεί στον ευρύτερο πεζό λόγο και, ακόμη μικρότερη στα λεγόμενα χρηστικά, μη αφηγηματικά, κείμενα. 1 Ανάμεσα στους λόγους που συνετέλεσαν στην υποβάθμιση των χρηστικών κειμένων ως πηγών για τη μελέτη της γλώσσας ήταν η (αισθη τι κή) απαξίωσή τους και η καταχρηστική ταύτιση της πρώιμης νεοελληνικής με τη δημώδη λογοτεχνική / αφηγηματική γλώσσα.
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Papers by Eleni Karantzola
In the first part of the study, we examine the voice distinctions in the history of the Greek language, showing that the use of the same voice morphology (i.e., active) for causative and anticausative readings increases in Hellenistic Greek
and spreads progressively until Early Modern Greek, as indicated by empirical evidence in dialectal texts. The second part of the study attributes this pattern to the lack of the nominative-accusative case distinction in neuter nouns that in turn can be interpreted as either objects of a transitive (causative) verb or subjects of an intransitive verb (anticausative). In this aspect, neuter nouns demonstrate a
type of split ergativity in the Greek labile alternations which thus require a split ergativity analysis based on DP features.
In the first part of the study, we examine the voice distinctions in the history of the Greek language, showing that the use of the same voice morphology (i.e., active) for causative and anticausative readings increases in Hellenistic Greek
and spreads progressively until Early Modern Greek, as indicated by empirical evidence in dialectal texts. The second part of the study attributes this pattern to the lack of the nominative-accusative case distinction in neuter nouns that in turn can be interpreted as either objects of a transitive (causative) verb or subjects of an intransitive verb (anticausative). In this aspect, neuter nouns demonstrate a
type of split ergativity in the Greek labile alternations which thus require a split ergativity analysis based on DP features.