Back to list

Detail of contribution

Auteur: Anthi REVITHIADOU

Co-Auteur(s): Vassilios SPYROPOULOS, University of Athens, Greece Giorgos MARKOPOULOS, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Titre:
From fusion to agglutination: The curious case of Asia Minor Greek


Abstract/Résumé: Asia Minor Greek dialects have been affected by the long-term language contact with Turkish in a way that they exhibit interference at all grammatical levels (Dawkins 1916, Janse 2009, a.o.). An immediate result of language contact is the parallel existence of both fusional (Greek pattern) and agglutinative (Turkish pattern) morphology in the nominal system, especially in the most turkicized varieties, such as the varieties of Ulaghatsh and Ferték of the Cappadocian (CGr) branch. In this paper, we argue that the transition from fusion to agglutination found a phonological expression in terms of a harmony-like process which developed in order to reflect the total absorption of the inflection to the root. The CGr Ulaghatsh variety typically exhibits a fusional and an agglutinative declensional pattern (Dawkins 1916, Janse 2004, Karatsareas 2011). The agglutinative declension is followed by nouns stressed on the final syllable (just like Turkish words), e.g. adelfós 'brother' and/or by non-human nouns, e.g. líkos 'wolf'. In these nouns inflectional suffixes are attached to a re-analyzed stem which includes the nom singular ending of the 'old' inflection, e.g. /líkos-jú/ 'wolf-GEN.SG' (cf. /xeríf-os/ 'man-NOM.SG', /xeríf-jú/ 'man-GEN.SG'). Interestingly, the merge of the base and the 'old' inflection is reflected at the phonological level by means of a vowel process which looks superficially like the Turkish vowel harmony, e.g. /petsét-a/ --> petsáta 'napkin', /δáskal-os/ --> δáskolos 'teacher', but which in fact is dramatically different from it, as (a) it shows sensitivity to stress, (b) it has a binary, right-to-left domain of application, (c) it is strictly restricted to the nom/acc singular forms (e.g. *δáskol-u 'teacher-GEN') and (d) it has lexical exceptions. We argue that the spreading of the [back]/[round] features from the inflection to the stem is a form of conflation: the inflection 'merges' with the stem at the morphological level and this is mirrored at the phonological level by means of sharing the same feature. Selected references Dawkins, R.M. 1916. Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A Study of the Dialects of Silly, Cappadocia and Pharasa with Grammar, Texts, Translations and Glossary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janse, M. 2004. Animacy, definiteness and case in Cappadocian and other Asia Minor Greek Dialects. Journal of Greek Linguistics 5: 3-26. Janse, M. 2009. Greek-Turkish language contact in Asia Minor. Hellenic Studies 17: 37-54. Karatsareas, P. 2011. A Study of Cappadocian Greek: Nominal Morphology from a Diachronic and Dialectological Perspective. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge.