13th ICFG 2008
Back to Programme
Abstracts
13th International Conference on Functional Grammar

Formal properties of the modern Greek verb mood system
Maria Chondrogianni,
University of Westminster, London, Great Britain

In this paper we explore the formal properties of the Modern Greek Verb Mood system, within the context of Functional Grammar (Dik 1997), with the intention of using our findings as tools for the study of the illocution of the Modern Greek Verb Mood system.

Mood, as a grammatically marked category, is usually distinguished based on either morphology or particles. Traditionally, each grammatical mood has a characteristic usage often presented in literature in semantic terms (e.g. Holton et al., 1997). We discuss our findings from a Pragmatics point of view, concentrating on sentence types associated with each mood. We are arguing that Modern Greek differentiates formally between five different moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Hortative, and Prohibitive.

We investigate each Moods’ formal properties, including intonation, distribution in main and subordinate clauses, negation, inflection, aspect, word order and clitic placement, and segmental strategies. We look at the distribution of the particles θα (the typical marker of future),να (typical subjunctive marker), and ας (typical Hortative marker). We illustrate, through examples, the presence of να in both main as well as subordinate clauses (with a preference in subordinate clauses), and we examine different uses of ας, which can only occur in independent clauses. We compare and contrast the characteristic distribution of constituents in clauses introduced by να and ας , which are in complementary distribution (i.e. they cannot occur together): for example, the preference for the Agent/ NP/Subject to occur at the end of the clause when an utterance is introduced by ας. Our study indicates that Hortative can be considered a distinct Modern Greek Mood. Hortative and Imperative are specifically used to execute illocutionary acts (hence they only appear in main clauses).  
Through our discussion of negation we show that the prohibitive use of the negation μην indicates that Prohibitive is a member of the main Mood system; we argue that μην is not always dependent on the particle να, hence ας, μην and να have a similar status, in that they can distinguishing verb moods. In conclusion, our research shows that the Greek mood system is subtly but significantly more sophisticated than has previously been suggested to be the case.

Back to Programme
References:
  • Auwera, J. Van der  2006.  “Why languages prefer prohibitives” in Journal of Foreign Languages 161, vol.1

  • Hengeveld, K. 2004.  “Illocution, Mood and Modality” in Booij, G.E., Lehman, Ch., Booij, G.E., Lehmann, C., Mugdan, J. and  Skopeteas, S. (eds) Morphology: An International Handbook on Inflection and Word-Formation, Vol. 2, Berlin, De Gruyter

  • Holton, D., Mackridge, P. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1997 Greek, London, Routledge

 


Print PageTop PageHome Page © Functional Grammar - last update 30 juni 2008