Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:05:19.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Subjects and configurationality: Modern Greek clause structure1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Geoffrey Horrocks
Geoffrey Horrocks
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article considers a range of evidence relevant to the determination of the configurational/non-configurational character of clause structure in Modern Greek (an issue that has led to some recent controversy, see Catsimali (1991) versus Tsimpli (1990, 1992)), and also re-examines the status of preverbal subjects in that language; some linguists (e.g. Tsimpli 1992; Philippaki-Warburton 1985, 1987, 1990) have argued that these are invariably topicalized, while others (e.g. Horrocks 1983, 1984) have maintained that they may, just like postverbal subjects, function simply as subjects. The overall conclusion supports that of Woolford (1991), who has queried the current fashion for universally configurational analyses, but at the same time new evidence is offered in favour of the view that preverbal subjects in Greek may indeed simply be subjects, lacking formal topic status.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 81 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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.)

References

Aoun, J. & Sportiche, D. (1983). On the formal theory of government. The Linguistic Review 3. 211–235Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (ed.) (1982). The mental representation of grammatical relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, A. (1990). Subject-object asymmetries in German null topic constructions and the status of SpecCP. In Mascaró, J. & Nespor, M. (eds.) Grammar in progress. Dordrecht: Foris. 75–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardinaletti, A. & Roberts, I. (1991). Clause structure and X-second. Ms., Universities of Venice and Geneva.Google Scholar
Catsimali, G. (1991). On the placement of Modern Greek on the ± configurational spectrum. Glossologia 7–8 (1988–1989). 73–86.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. (Janua Linguarum 4.) The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986). Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1991). Some notes on economy of derivation and representation. In Freidlin, R. (ed.) Principles and parameters in comparative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Drachman, G. (1989). Raising in a language without infinitives. Paper presented to the Annual Linguistics Meeting, Vienna, December 1989. (Circulated as a working paper, Department of Linguistics, University of Salzburg, 1991).Google Scholar
Drachman, G. (1991). Greek phrase structure and the order of inflectional morphemes. Paper presented at the meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea at Kiel, July 1991. Folia Linguistica.Google Scholar
Drachman, G. (1992). Adjunct extraction and economy. Studies in Greek linguistics 12: Proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki. 225–243.Google Scholar
Drachman, G. & Klidi, C. (1992). The extended minimal structure hypothesis. Studies in Greek linguistics 13: Proceedings of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki. 371–389.Google Scholar
É.Kiss, K. (1987). Configurationality in Hungarian. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukui, N. & Speas, M. J. (1986). Specifiers and projection. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 8. 128–172.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. (1963). Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Greenberg, J. (ed.) Universals of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 73–113.Google Scholar
Hale, K. (1973). Person marking in Warlpiri. In Anderson, S. R. & Kiparsky, P. (eds.) Fetschrift for Morris Halle. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 308–344.Google Scholar
Hale, K. (1980). The position of Warlpiri in a typology of the base. Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Hale, K. (1983). Warlpiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1. 5–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, K. (1985). On non-configurational structures. Ms., MIT.Google Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. (1983). The order of constituents in Modern Greek. In Gazdar, G., Klein, E. & Pullum, G. K. (eds.) Order, concord and constituency. Dordrecht: Foris. 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. (1984). The lexical head constraint, X'-theory and the pro-drop parameter. In de Geest, W. & Putseys, Y. (eds.) Sentential complementation. Dordrecht: Foris. 117–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. & Stavrou, M. (1985). Evidence for the movement of interrogative pronouns within NP. Studies in Greek linguistics 6: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki: Kyriakides. 199–220.Google Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. & Stavrou, M. (1987). Bounding theory and Greek syntax: evidence forwh- movement in NP. Journal of Linguistics 23.1. 79–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Y. (1991). A neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora. Journal of Linguistics 27.2. 301–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iatridou, S. (1988). Clitics, anaphors and a problem of coindexation. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 698–703.Google Scholar
Joseph, B. D. (1993) The morphosyntax of the Modern Greek verb as morphology and not syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 24.2. 388–397.Google Scholar
Joseph, B. D. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1987). Modern Greek. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Koopman, H. & Sportiche, D. (1991). The position of subjects. In McCloskey, J. (ed.) The syntax of verb-initial languages. Elsevier (published as a special edition of Lingua).Google Scholar
Larson, R. (1988). On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 335–392.Google Scholar
Larson, R. (1990). Double objects revisited: a reply to Jackendoff. Linguistic Inquiry 21. 589–632.Google Scholar
Mackridge, P. (1985). The Modern Greek language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Manzini, R. & Wexler, K. (1987). Parameters, binding theory and learnability. Linguistic Inquiry 18. 413–444Google Scholar
Marácz, L. & Muysken, P. (eds.) (1989). Configurationality: the typology of asymmetries. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1985). Word order in Modern Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society 1985. 113–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1987). The theory of empty categories and the pro-drop parameter in Modern Greek. Journal of Linguistics 23.2. 289–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1990). The analysis of the verb group in Modern Greek. Studies in Greek linguistics 11: Proceedings of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis. 119–138.Google Scholar
Pollock, J.-Y. (1989). Verb movement, UG and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20. 365–424.Google Scholar
Rivero, M. L. (1990). The location of non-active voice in Albanian and Modern Greek. Linguistic Inquiry 21. 135–146.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1991). Proper head government and the definition of A-positions. GLOW Newsletter 26. 46–47.Google Scholar
Roussou, A. & Tsimpli, I. M. (1993). On the interaction of case and definiteness. Paper presented to the First International Conference on Greek Linguistics, University of Reading, September 1993.Google Scholar
Speas, M. J. (1990). Phrase structure in natural language. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M. (1990). Clause structure and word order in Modern Greek. In Harris, J. (ed.) UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 2. University College London. 226–255.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M. (1992). Focussing in Modern Greek. Ms., University College London.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M. & Roussou, A. (1991). Parameter resetting in L2? In van de Koot, H. (ed.) UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3. University College London. 149–170.Google Scholar
Williams, E. (1980). Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11. 203–238.Google Scholar
Woolford, E. (1991). VP-internal subjects in VSO and non-configurational languages. Linguistic Inquiry 22. 503–540.Google Scholar