Sociolinguistic Studies: Ιανουαρίου 2021

The linguistic situation in Greece with its related language policies has developed under the influence of three main factors. To begin with, modern Greek is, like so many other lesser spoken national languages, both “weak” and “strong”: as it is the national language of Greece, it is overwhelmingly used and taught in this country; yet on the international level, and at a time when individual countries, especially small ones, can no longer afford to be inward-looking, it shares the same quantitatively inferior status with its many other lesser spoken sisters. Secondly, Greek has traditionally felt itself at best in competition with and at worst threatened by not only relatively strong but also weaker languages; not only abroad but also within Greece. Thirdly, Modern Greek has not yet fully reconciled itself to the fact that it is the lesser used descendant of Classical Greek, one of the most prestigious languages ever to have existed; this is causing difficulties not only on the psychological or the ideological level but on the structural as well.

Below, we will examine in some detail the influence of the above three factors on the present linguistic situation in Greece. In so doing, we will alternatively look at things Greek from the point of view of (a) Greek as either a strong or a weak language, (b) internationally strong languages, including Classical Greek, in competition with Modern Greek, and (c) weak languages with which Greek comes into contact within Greece.

Τὸ πλῆρες κείμενο στὸν σύνδεσμο:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_gXiT-uFadDbDZzgOsZT8EjnMcJKsUgN/view?usp=sharing

The Inflectional Morphology of the Verb in Modern Greek Koine: A Variationist Approach

The Inflectional Morphology of the Verb in Modern Greek Koine: A Variationist Approach. Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Leeds. 1979.

Abstract

This study is concerned with the description, on the basis of recordings of informal conversations between young educated AtInenian peers, of the interrelated patterns of variability and invariance obtaining in the verb inflection in Modern Greek Koine. The analysis is conducted within the variationist generative framework, i.e. it is committed to exhaustiveness and explicitness, but unlike the traditional (Chomksyan) generative model, it is based not only on the intuitions of the author but, more importantly, on observations of language in actual use. Variation phenomena are accounted for on the basis of the concept of variable rule. Use is also made of the insights gained by scholars working with implicational scales. A central concern in the study is to avoid the identification of structuredness with invariance, a characteristic of traditional generative theory, but also the all too common practice in much variationist literature of concentrating on a few (mostly phonological) variables that yield rich observed frequencies. Rather, we take the view that speakers make use both of invariance and of variability in their speech and that in the latter case differences in scores are not necessarily meaningful. Furthermore, speakers often engage, for the sake of stylistic effect, in the breaking of rules, a process resulting in episodic, yet highly meaningful, forms. The study is also concerned with accounting in explicit ways for variation phenomena sometimes related in the literature to the (unsatisfactory) concept of diglossia. Alternative analyses of the Greek verb inflection are examined and a number of structural places where inflectional formatives alternate are recognized. To account for all the acceptable "categorical" and "optional" combinations of inflectional formatives, a system of rules is set up. Furthermore, features of the linguistic and situational context are correlated with the probability of appearance of a number of variants in the output of a particular variable rule.

For the full text, go to:

https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/186/1/uk_bl_ethos_436749.pdf

This thesis is also available at:

https://thesis.ekt.gr/thesisBookReader/id/4443#page/2/mode/1up

where, however, Table One: The regular paradigm of the verb in Modern Greek Koine, has been omitted, possibly as a result of its large size. A more workable version (Excel) of Table One appears below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oB7jm4wgp8SdbaqveD1b6tNGcQzcZlQT/view?usp=sharing

At the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xjhL8NGM0vSUAL31OmWeONrOuPotTlwD?usp=sharing

the thesis appears not as a continuous text but divided by chapter, so that the reader may move easily from the text to the notes at the end of each chapter.