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13th International Conference
on Functional Grammar
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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.
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References: |
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Auwera,
J. Van der 2006. “Why
languages prefer prohibitives” in Journal of Foreign
Languages 161, vol.1
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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
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Holton,
D., Mackridge, P. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1997 Greek,
London, Routledge
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