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Abstract

Word formation is often considered in many phonological studies to involve concatenation of morphemes. However, a morpheme-based morphological analysis runs into difficulties when dealing with accentuation patterns in Ancient Greek. On the one hand, Ancient Greek adjectives suffixed with -es and -to show different accentuation patterns that cannot be easily accounted for by assigning accentual properties to the morphemes they contain. On the other hand, forms with contracted vowels show that the assignment of lexical accent and default accent occurs at different cycles in phonology. This paper proposes a word-based model that is developed within the framework of Construction Morphology (Booij 2005; 2007; 2010) for phonological analysis: word formation is based on analogical parallelism among morphologically related word forms, which is modeled as the instantiation of schemata. Accentual properties are considered idiosyncrasies of schemata, and the observed accentuation patterns can be accounted for via two cycles within the Optimality Theory (OT) framework.

Open Access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
Open Access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics

Abstract

In this paper I analyse the shifting usage of the Discourse Marker ἰδού in the Greek papyri corpora of epistolary nature dating from the 3rd c. BC to the 5th c. AD. My methodology is largely based on the account of grammaticalization as presented in Traugott and Dasher (2001), and pays particular attention to the questions of pragmatic inference, syntactic scope, modality and politeness. I claim that the distribution of usages we find in the papyri corpora can be understood as an outcome of development of ἰδού alongside several different paths: first from an exophoric deictic marker to an endophoric deictic marker, and then from a deictic marker to a marker of epistemic force and adversativity, an emphatic marker and a marker of reproach, and a politeness marker.

Open Access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
Free access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics

Abstract

This study addresses the phonological representation and phonetic realization of pitch patterns found on or near prosodically prominent syllables in Ancient Greek, namely, the distinction between the so-called “acute” and “circumflex” accents. Empirically, we investigate in detail the correlation between tones and tunes in the Delphic hymns (DAGM 20 and 21) on syllables capable of bearing a circumflex accent (i.e., syllables containing a long vowel or diphthong = VV-syllables). This data supports two major findings. First, VV-syllables with circumflex accent are significantly more likely to be set to a melism than VV-syllables that are acute, grave, or unaccented, and, moreover, the proportion of melismatic settings among acute, unaccented, and grave VV-syllables does not significantly differ. Second, circumflex melisms consistently (always or nearly so) fall in pitch (on average, by three semitones), whereas acute and unaccented melisms may either rise or fall (on average, by 1.5–2.25 semitones in either direction). Taken together, this data conforms to the usual description of the circumflex as a falling pitch, [H L], but speaks against claims that the acute constitutes a rising pitch ([L H], or High alone aligned with the latter portion of a VV-syllable, [∅ H]). We instead conclude that the acute represents a single High pitch target phonologically mapped to the entirety of a VV-syllable, and discuss the implications for the phonological analysis of the prosody of Ancient Greek in light of the typology of contour tones.

Open Access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
Free access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics

Abstract

Derivational morphology is an umbrella term used for concatenative and non-concatenative processes for the formation of new lexemes. In Modern Greek, derivational morphology is one of the major morphological processes along with compounding and inflection. In recent years, research on derivational morphology has evolved rapidly. We present here the state-of-the-art on the recent advances in the derivational morphology of Modern Greek. First, we present affixational derivation by focusing on the main features of the derivational affixes used in Modern Greek and then we present the non-concatenative derivational processes. We also discuss the main theoretical issues related to derivational morphology, that is, constraints, competition and productivity of derivational patterns, and the main theoretical approaches to Modern Greek derivational structures. Finally, we present some general themes of derivational morphology, including the relationship between derivation and other morphological processes and the role of derivational morphology in scientific terminology, language teaching/lexicography and psycholinguistics. We aim to contribute to better understanding of how morphology works by highlighting the potential of research on derivational morphology in Modern Greek.

Open Access
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics
In: Journal of Greek Linguistics