Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-zpzq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-10T04:59:00.583Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Raising and matching in Pharasiot Greek relative clauses: A diachronic reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2021

METIN BAGRIACIK Open the ORCID record for METIN BAGRIACIK [Opens in a new window]  and
LIEVEN DANCKAERT Open the ORCID record for LIEVEN DANCKAERT [Opens in a new window]
METIN BAGRIACIK
Affiliation:
Boğaziçi University, John Freely Hall 311, 34342, Bebek, Istanbul, Turkeymetin.bagriacik@boun.edu.tr
LIEVEN DANCKAERT
Affiliation:
CNRS/Université de Lille, UMR 8163 CNRS, Savoirs, Textes, Langage (STL), Université de Lille – Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Rue du Barreau BP 60149 59653 Villeneuve-d’Ascq Cedex, Francelieven.danckaert@univ-lille.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper studies the structure and origin of prenominal and postnominal restrictive relative clauses in Pharasiot Greek. Though both patterns are finite and introduced by the invariant complementizer tu, they differ in two important respects. First, corpus data reveal that prenominal relatives are older than their postnominal counterparts. Second, in the present-day language only prenominal relatives involve a matching derivation, whereas postnominal ones behave like Head-raising structures. Turning to diachrony, we suggest that prenominal relatives came into being through morphological fusion of a determiner t- with an invariant complementizer u. This process entailed a reduction of functional structure in the left periphery of the relative clause, to the effect that the landing site for a raising Head was suppressed, leaving a matching derivation as the only option. Postnominal relatives are analyzed as borrowed from Standard Modern Greek. Our analysis corroborates the idea that both raising and matching derivations for relatives must be acknowledged, sometimes even within a single language.

Keywords

matchingPharasiot Greekpostnominalprenominalraisingrelative clause
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 495 - 533
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

We thank the audience at the 18th Diachronic Generative Syntax conference (DiGS 18) in Ghent, our former colleagues at GIST (Ghent University), three anonymous referees and the editor of Journal of Linguistics, as well as Guglielmo Cinque, Liliane Haegeman, Mark Janse, Nikos Liosis, Io Manolessou, Anna Roussou, and Ioanna Sitaridou for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also indebted to Andreas Konstantinidis, his family, Konstantinos Kalaitzidis and the inhabitants of Vathylakkos (Kozani) and Platy (Imathia) for making this research possible. Finally, our deepest gratitude is to our informants: Anastasia, Despoina†, Eirini, Evlambia, Georgios, Grigoris, Katerina, Leftheris, Maria, Nikos, Prodromos, Sofia†, Theodorakis† and Thanasis. M. Bagriacik’s work was funded by the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO 12Q0719N) and by the Boğaziçi University Research Funds (BAP 21B12SUP1).

References

Alexiadou, Artemis. 1998. On the structure of Greek relative clauses. Studies in Greek Linguistics 18, 15–29.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis & Varlokosta, Spyridoula. 1996. The syntactic and semantic properties of relative clauses in Modern Greek. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 5, 1–32.Google Scholar
Anagnostopoulos, Georgios. 1922. Peri tu arthru [On the determiner]. Athina 34, 166–247.Google Scholar
Anastasiadis, Vasilios. 1976. I sintaksi sto Farasiotiko idioma tis Kapadokias [The syntax of the dialect of Pharasa in Cappadocia]. Dissertation, University of Ioannina.Google Scholar
Andriotis, Nikolaos P. 1948. To glosiko idioma ton Farason [The dialect of Pharasa]. Athens: Ikaros.Google Scholar
Aoun, Joseph & Li, Yen-Hui Audrey. 2003. Essays on the representational and derivational nature of grammar: The diversity of wh-constructions . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bağrıaçık, Metin. 2018. Pharasiot Greek: Word order and clause structure. Dissertation, Ghent University.Google Scholar
Bakker, Willem. 1974. Pronomen abundans and pronomen coniunctum. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Basilico, David. 1996. Head position and internally headed relative clauses. Language 72, 498–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentein, Klaas & Bağrıaçık, Metin. 2018. On the third type of headed relative clause in Post-classical & Early Byzantine Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society 116, 529–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, Rajesh. 2002. The raising analysis of relative clauses: Evidence from adjectival modification. Natural Language Semantics 10, 43–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, Valentina. 1993. An empirical contribution to the study of idiomatic expressions. Rivista di Linguistica 5, 349–385.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Valentina. 1999. Consequences of antisymmetry: Headed relative clauses. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 2008. Linguistic fieldwork: A practical guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brame, Michael. 1968. A new analysis of relative clauses: Evidence for an interpretive theory. Ms., MIT.Google Scholar
Browning, Robert. 1983. Medieval and Modern Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano. 2003. Free not to ask: On the semantics of free relatives and wh-words cross-linguistically. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Carlson, Greg. 1977. Amount relatives. Language 53, 520–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chila-Markopoulou, Despina. 1990–1991. Provlimata diachronikis sintaksis: I anaforikes protasis sti Meseoniki ke Nea Eliniki [Problems of diachronic syntax: Free relative clauses in Medieval and Modern Greek]. Glossologia 9–10, 13–42.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of $ \overline{A} $ -dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1996. The antisymmetric programme: Theoretical and typological implications. Journal of Linguistics 32, 447–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2003. The prenominal origin of relative clauses. Presented at the Workshop on Antysimmetry and Remnant Movement, New York University, 31 October–1 November 2003.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2005. Deriving Greenberg’s universal 20 and its exceptions. Linguistic Inquiry 36, 315–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2008a. More on the indefinite character of the head of restrictive relatives. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 33, 3–24.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2008b. Two types of non-restrictive relatives. In d’Olivier, Bonami & Hofherr, Patricia Cabredo (eds.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 7, 99–137. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2009. The fundamental left-right asymmetry of natural languages. In Scalise, Sergio, Magni, Elisabetta & Bisetto, Antonietta (eds.), Universals of language today, 165–184. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2015. Three phenomena discriminating between ‘raising’ and ‘matching’ relative clauses. Semantics-Syntax Interface 2, 1–27.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2016. On the double-headed analysis of ‘headless’ relative clauses. Ms., Ca’Foscari University of Venice. lingbuzz/003224 .Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2020. The syntax of relative clauses: A unified analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citko, Barbara. 2004. On headed, headless, and light-headed relatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22, 95–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citko, Barbara. 2008. An argument against assimilating appositive relatives to coordinate structures. Linguistic Inquiry 39, 633–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Peter. 1987. The structure of internally headed relative clauses. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 5, 277–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costakis, Thanasis P. 1968. To glosiko idioma tis Silis [The dialect of Silli]. Athens: CAMS.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard. 1916. Modern Greek in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard. 1940. The dialects of Modern Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society 39, 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dayal, Veneeta. 1997. Free relatives and ‘ever’. Identity and free choice readings. In Strolovitch, Devon & Lawson, Aaron (eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistics Theory VIII, 99–117. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Deal, Amy. 2016. Cyclicity and connectivity in Nez Perce relative clauses. Linguistic Inquiry 47, 427–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Lagarde, Paul. 1886. NeuGriechisches aus Klein Asien. Göttingen: Dieterichsche Verlags-Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
De Vries, Mark. 2002. The syntax of relativization. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
De Vries, Mark. 2006. The syntax of appositive relativization: On specifying coordination, false free relatives, and promotion. Linguistic Inquiry 37, 229–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, Stefanie. 2014. Internal and external relative clauses in Ancient Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics 14, 141–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Favis, Vasilis. 1948. Sintaktike paratirisis is to idioma ton Farason [Syntactic observations on the dialect of Pharasa]. Epetiris Vizantinon Spoudon 18, 173–191.Google Scholar
Gignac, Francis. 1981. A grammar of the Greek papyri of the Roman and Byzantine periods. Vol. 2: Morphology . Milan: Cisalpino-La Goliardica.Google Scholar
Giorgi, Alessandra & Pianesi, Fabio. 1997. Tense and aspect: From semantics to morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grosu, Alexander. 1994. Three studies in locality and case. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grosu, Alexander & Landman, Fred. 1998. Strange relatives of the third kind. Natural Language Semantics 6, 125–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1987. Where does the definiteness restriction apply? Evidence from the definiteness of variables. In Reuland, Eric & ter Meulen, Alice (eds.), The representation of (in)definiteness, 21–42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hiraiwa, Ken. 2017. Internally headed relative clauses. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to syntax, 2nd edn. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom028.Google Scholar
Holton, David, Horrocks, Geoffrey, Janssen, Marjolijne, Lentari, Stamatina, Manolessou, Io & Toufexis, Notis. 2019. The Cambridge grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek, vols. 2, 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holton, David, Mackridge, Peter & Philippaki-Warburton, Irene. [1997] 2012. Greek: A comprehensive grammar of the modern language, revised by Vasilis Spryopoulos. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horrocks, Geoffrey. [1997] 2010. Greek: A history of the language and its speakers. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulsey, Sarah & Sauerland, Uli. 2006. Sorting out relative clauses. Natural Language Semantics 14, 111–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jannaris, Antonius. [1897] 1987. An historical Greek grammar. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Janse, Mark. 1998a. Grammaticalization and typological change: The clitic cline in Asia Minor Greek. In Janse, Mark (ed.), Productivity and creativity: Studies in general and descriptive linguistics in honor of E.M. Uhlenbeck, 521–547. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janse, Mark. 1998b. Le grec au contact du turc: Le cas des relatives en cappadocien. In Caron, Bernard (ed.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Linguists, no. 393. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Janse, Mark. 1999. Greek, Turkish, and Cappadocian relatives revis(it)ed. In Babiniotis, Georgios (ed.), Greek linguistics 97: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Greek Linguistics, 463–452. Athens: Elinika Gramata.Google Scholar
Janse, Mark. To appear. I Kappadokiki dialektos [The Cappadocian dialect]. In Tzitzilis, Christos (ed.), Neoelinikes dialekti [Modern Greek dialects]. Thessaloniki: ILNE.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian. 1983. The synchrony and diachrony of the Balkan infinitive. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Karatsareas, Petros. 2011. A study of Cappadocian Greek nominal morphology from a diachronic and dialectological perspective. Dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Karolidis, Pavlos. 1885. Glossarion sigkritikon Elinokapadokikon lekseon [Comparative glossary of Greek-Cappadocian words]. Izmir: Evangelical School.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward & Comrie, Bernard. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8, 63–99.Google Scholar
Kirk, Allison. 2012. Word order and information structure in New Testament Greek. Dissertation, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Kisilier, Maxim. 2009. Yazyk i kultura mariupolckix grekov 1 [Language and culture of Mariupolitan Greeks 1]. St. Petersburg: Aleteia.Google Scholar
Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kotzoglou, George & Varlokosta, Spyridoula. 2005. Clitics in Greek restrictive relatives: An integrated approach. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 27–49.Google Scholar
Kriki, Eirini. 2013. Morfosintaktiki neoterismi sti glossa ton mi filologikon papiron: I anaforikes protasis [Morphosyntactic innovations in the language of the non-philological papyri: The relative clauses]. Dissertation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Lees, Robert. 1961. The constituent structure of noun phrases. American Speech 36, 159–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lekakou, Marika & Karatsareas, Petros. 2016. Marking definiteness multiply: Evidence from two varieties of Greek. Studies in Greek Linguistics 36, 189–203.Google Scholar
Levidis, Anastasios. 1892. Pragmatia peri tis en Kappadokia lalumenis glosis [A treatise on the language spoken in Cappadocia]. Ms., CAMS.Google Scholar
Liosis, Nikos & Kriki, Eirini. 2013. Towards a typology of relative clauses in Modern Greek dialects. In Janse, Mark, Joseph, Brian, Ralli, Angela & Bagriacik, Metin (eds.), Online proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory, 245–271. Patras: University of Patras.Google Scholar
Liosis, Nikos & Kriki, Eirini. 2014. Towards a typology of relative clauses in late Medieval Greek. In Kotzoglou, George (ed.), Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, 895–908. Rhodes: University of Rhodes.Google Scholar
Loukopoulos, Dimitris & Loukatos, Dimitris. 1951. Parimies ton Farason [Idioms of Pharasa]. Athens: CAMS.Google Scholar
Manolessou, Io. 2004. I anaforikes protasis tis Elinikis [Relative clauses in Greek]. In Catsimali, Georgis, Kalokairinos, Alexis, Anagnostopoulou, Elena, & Kappa, Ionna (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Greek Linguistics. Rethymno: University of Crete.Google Scholar
Manolessou, Io. 2019. The historical background of the Asia Minor Greek dialects. In Ralli, Angela (ed.), The morphology of Asia Minor Greek, 20–65. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Mayser, Edwin. 1934. Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemäerzeit. Vol. II.3: Satzlehre. Berlin & Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Montrul, Silvina. 2016. The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Nick. 1998a. To aper and o opoioc: Untangling Mediaeval Greek relativization. In Joseph, Brian, Horrocks, Geoffrey & Philippaki-Warburton, Irene (eds.), Themes in Greek linguistics 2, 283–323. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Nick. 1998b. The story of pu: The grammaticalisation in space and time of a Modern Greek complementizer. Dissertation, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Oeconomides, Demosthenes E. 1958. Gramatiki tis elinikis dialektu tu Pontu [Grammar of the Greek dialect of Pontus]. Athens: Academy of Athens.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, Iordanis V. 2006. I ekpedevsi sti Kapadokia apo tis arhes tu 19u eona os tin antalagi ton plithismon [Education in Cappadocia from the beginning of the 19th century until the population exchange]. In O elinismos tis Mikras Asias apo tin arheotita mehri ti Megali Eksodo [Hellenism in Asia Minor from antiquity till the Greek exodus], 155–186. Athens: KE.MI.PO.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, Iordanis V. 2011. Kapadokika paramithia ke laikes paradosis [Cappadocian stories and lore]. Athens: KE.MI.PO.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 1975. Montague grammar and transformational grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 6, 203–300.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 2018. Heritage languages and their speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Probert, Philomen. 2015. Early Greek relative clauses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revithiadou, Anthi & Spyropoulos, Vassilios. 2012. Ofitiki: Ptiches tis grammatikis domis mias Pontiakis dialektu [Ophitic: Aspects of the grammatical structure of a Pontic dialect]. Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis.Google Scholar
Rijksbaron, Albert. 1986. Relative clause formation in Ancient Greek. In Bolkestein, Machtelt, Combé, Henk, de Groot, Casper, Gvozdanović, Jadranka, Rijksbaron, Albert & Co Vet (eds.), Predication and expression in Functional Grammar, 235–259. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Haegeman, Liliane (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roussou, Anna. 2000. On the left periphery: Modal particles and complementisers. Journal of Greek Linguistics 1, 65–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarantidis, Archelaos I. 1899. I Sinasos [Sinasos]. Athens: Tipografeion Ioannou Nikolaïdou.Google Scholar
Sauerland, Uli. 1998. The meaning of chains. Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Sauerland, Uli. 2000. Two structures for English restrictive relative clauses. In Saito, Mamoru (ed.), Proceedings of the Nanzan GLOW, 351–366. Nagoya: Nanzan University.Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul. 1973. Focus and relativization. Language 49, 19–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, Christoph. 2002. On the structure of spoken Turkish. ELIS-e 2, 73–90.Google Scholar
Sichel, Ivy. 2014. Resumptive pronouns and competition. Linguistic Inquiry 45, 655–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sitaridou, Ioanna. 2013. Greek-speaking enclaves in Pontus today: The documentation and revitalization of Romeyka. In Jones, Mari C. & Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.), Keeping languages alive: Documentation, pedagogy and revitalization, 98–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sitaridou, Ioanna. 2014. The Romeyka infinitive continuity, contact and change in the Hellenic varieties of Pontus. Diachronica 31, 23–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symeonidis, Charalampos & Tompaidis, Dimitrios. 1999. I simerini eliniki dialektos tis Ukranias [The contemporary Greek dialect of Ukraine]. Athens: Epitropi Pontiakon Meleton.Google Scholar
Theodoridis, Theodoros. 1950s. Viografiko [Autobiography]. Ms., CAMS.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah. 2001. Language contact: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Triandaphyllidis, Periklis. [1938] 1993. Neoeliniki grammatiki [Modern Greek grammar], vol. 1. Thessaloniki: INES.Google Scholar
Trinchera, Francisco (ed.). 1865. Syllabus graecarum membranarum. Naples: Cataneo.Google Scholar
Van Emde Boas, Evert, Rijksbaron, Albert, Huitink, Luuk & de Bakker, Mathieu. 2019. The Cambridge grammar of Classical Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vergnaud, Jean. 1974. French relative clauses. Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai. 2000. Whatever. In Jackson, Brendan & Matthews, Tanya (eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (SALT 10), 27–39. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar