Regulating word order in modern Greek: verb initial and non-verb initial orders & the conceptual-intentional interface

Abstract

I introduce the notions ‘configurational’, ‘discourse-configurational’, and \nthe basics of the minimalist syntax, on the one hand, and notions relevant to \ninformation packaging, on the other hand (Chapter 1), in the following thee \nchapters I proceed to a detailed examination of the syntactic properties of \nverb-initial and non-verb initial orders, insisting on certain debated aspects. \nIn particular, in Chapter 2, I compare the syntax of VSO and that of the \n‘problematic’ VOS order; I show that what differentiates the two constructions \nis that the latter order is due to a flexible strategy in the narrow syntax that \nallows the object to pied-pipe alongside the verb to the TP domain. In Chapter \n3, I discuss clitic doubling for which I put forward an alternative account \ninvolving feature copying that allows the same DP to occur in two positions in \nthe structure at the same time. In this light, I further argue that clitic \ndoubling is a parameterized version of A-movement. In Chapter 4, I deal with \nthe properties of a range of constructions targeting the preverbal domain. I \nargue that the peculiar behaviour of CLLD is due to that it is the result of two \noperations, namely, A-movement in the form of clitic doubling and A-bar \nmovement. I also show that non-focal LD is more productive than previously \nthought and that the construction involves mere A-bar movement. \nIn the remaining two chapters I shift attention to issues related to the \ndiscourse-configurational nature of the language and information structure. \nAfter I discuss various models of integrating information structure into the \nminimalist grammar (Chapter 5), I argue that Information Structure can refer \neither to pragmatic articulations or more abstract logico-semantic strategies or \nboth. Regarding the latter one, I show that Greek formally realizes via its word \norder two such strategies: a predicative and a non-predicative, the former surfacing as non-Verb initial orders and the latter one surfacing as verb-initial \norders. In the second half of Chapter 6, I deal with the interpretive effects of \ndoubling. In particular, I argue that doubling in Greek invariably marks a DP \nas a topic. I also show that non-focal left dislocated DPs in Greek are fronted \nground material that serves as an anchor for the introduction of new \ninformation into the discourse. \nChapter 7 summarizes the major contributions of the current thesis.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.