Tzanidaki, Dimitra Irini; (1996) The syntax and pragmatics of subject and object position in Modern Greek. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis investigates word order variation in Modern Greek (MG), and in particular, the order of subject, verb and object in declarative clauses. Unlike English, a simple Greek declarative clause consisting of a verb and its nominal subject and object can be rendered in all six logically possible combinations: VSO, VOS, SVO, OVS, SOV, OSV The study seeks to account for certain issues - largely underexplored within existing accounts of Greek word order - such as the respective burden borne by syntax, morphology and pragmatics in MG clausal structure and order, and the markedness associated with each of the six orders. A working assumption that this thesis adopts is that an adequate exploration of word order will have to incorporate insights from a variety of typological, formal, functional and cognitive perspectives in order to unfold the complex array of interdependent factors that relate to word order variation (Siewierska 1988: 266). Chapter 1 sets out the aim, outlines the research topic and offers an overview of the thesis. Chapter 2 details the issue of configurational clause structure with special reference to Greek and argues that a flat clause structure is to be preferred to a configurational one. Chapter 3 proposes a dependency-based clause structure consisting just of a verbal stem plus subject and object markers, and looks at some of the implications of the hypothesized structure. Chapter 4 argues for the concept of grammatical preference principle, as a means of accounting for certain markedness patterns associated with each of the six word orders. Two such principles are proposed which are argued to be part of Greek grammar, though influenced, perhaps by processing factors. Chapter 5 discusses the relation between linear order and pragmatic effects through a body of contextualized (spoken) data provided in an appendix.

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