Dr. Dionysios Mertyris | Academy of Athens (original) (raw)

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Papers by Dr. Dionysios Mertyris

Η γενική στην Αρχαία Ελληνική διέθετε τρεις σημασίες, καθώς εκτός από τις κτητικές και μεριστικές... more Η γενική στην Αρχαία Ελληνική διέθετε τρεις σημασίες, καθώς
εκτός από τις κτητικές και μεριστικές (διαιρετικές) λειτουργίες
που κληρονόμησε από την Πρωτο-Ινδο-Ευρωπαϊκή γενική, μπορούσε να έχει και αφαιρετική σημασία, την οποία απέκτησε
λόγω της απώλειας της αφαιρετικής πτώσης πριν από τον 8ο
αι. π.Χ. Ωστόσο, η γενική της Νέας Ελληνικής έχει χάσει τόσο
τη μεριστική όσο και την αφαιρετική χρήση της, με την κτήση
να είναι η μόνη αρχαία σημασία που έχει διατηρηθεί. Αυτές οι
αλλαγές εντάσσονται στην ευρύτερη αναδόμηση του αρχαίου
πτωτικού συστήματος στο πλαίσιο της σταδιακής υποχώρησης
των σημασιολογικών χρήσεων των πλάγιων πτώσεων εξαιτίας
της εκτεταμένης χρήσης των προθετικών φράσεων και άλλων
αναλυτικών δομών. Έτσι, το παρόν άρθρο επιχειρεί να ανιχνεύσει την πορεία της απώλειας των μεριστικών λειτουργιών της
γενικής στην Ελληνική και να εντοπίσει τους παράγοντες που
οδήγησαν σε αυτήν.

Languages

This paper deals with the distribution of the use of the accusative as an indirect object in two ... more This paper deals with the distribution of the use of the accusative as an indirect object in two major dialect groups of Modern Greek, namely Northern Greek and Pontic Greek. The loss of the dative in Medieval Greek (c. 10th c. AD) resulted in the use of the genitive as an indirect object in the southern varieties and of the accusative in Northern Greek and Asia Minor Greek. As Standard Modern Greek employs the genitive, little attention has been paid to the distribution of the accusative, and our study was aimed to fill that gap by presenting data collected in Northern Greece from speakers of both dialect groups. According to our findings, the accusative is exclusively used in all syntactic domains inherited from the Ancient Greek dative in both dialect groups, but the two groups are kept apart in terms of the obligatoriness vs. optionality or lack of clitic doubling and availability vs. lack of “high” positions, e.g., for external possessors and ethical dative constructions.

A morphosyntactically and semantically annotated corpus of selected sentences from texts througho... more A morphosyntactically and semantically annotated corpus of selected sentences from texts throughout the history of the Greek language, produced by the AHRC-funded project "Investigating Variation and Change: Case in Diachrony"

Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistics Theory, 2019

Namely the contraction of-άων το-ῶν of α-masculines and feminines (1 st declension) in Archaic Gr... more Namely the contraction of-άων το-ῶν of α-masculines and feminines (1 st declension) in Archaic Greek. 2 The third person genitive plural των can be found in a few variant forms (e.g. τω/ τωνε/ τουν/ ντουνε/ τνε etc) in

Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistics Theory, 2012

This article deals with the replacement of the genitive by the accusative plural in the nominal i... more This article deals with the replacement of the genitive by the accusative plural in the nominal inflection of various Modern Greek dialects. The aim of the article is to provide an explanation of the factors that triggered this unusual development that is not found in the majority of the Modern Greek dialects and Common Modern Greek. Apart from presenting the data on its dialectal distribution, it will be argued that the phenomenon is an extension of the already established pattern of the accusative-genitive syncretism in the personal pronouns that can be found almost everywhere in the Modern Greek-speaking world.

Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

The DiGreC (DIachrony of GREek Case) treebank is a corpus of selected sentences from Greek texts,... more The DiGreC (DIachrony of GREek Case) treebank is a corpus of selected sentences from Greek texts, ranging from Homer to Modern Greek, which have been annotated morphosyntactically and semantically. The corpus comprises excerpts from 655 texts, for a total of 3385 sentences and 56,440 word tokens; automated tagging and lemmatisation has been supplemented with manual review to ensure accuracy. The data exist in xml and csv formats, which can be manipulated and converted automatically to other schemata. A web site has also been created to allow users to interact with the data more easily, and to provide specialised functionality for searching and visualisation. This corpus was created to inform theoretical debates regarding the role of case in grammar, and may be of use to researchers searching for specific attestations of a range of different constructions in Greek.

Valency over Time

The paper discusses changes in the encoding of basic valency and valency alternation in Greek. At... more The paper discusses changes in the encoding of basic valency and valency alternation in Greek. At its earliest stage, Homeric Greek, valency alternation is most frequently encoded through voice, whereby the active voice encodes caused events and the middle encodes spontaneous ones. This pattern is almost exclusive with inanimate verbs, while one third of animate verbs show suppletion. In Modern Greek lability plays a relevant role for inanimate verbs, while suppletion increases its frequency among animate verbs. Diachronic evidence shows an extension of voice alternation in Classical Greek, while lability emerged at the end of the Classical age and developed in Middle Greek. Comparison of Ancient with Modern Greek points to the replacement of a detransitivizing strategy (voice opposition) through an undetermined one (lability), which is clear-cut with inanimate verbs, with animate verbs showing an increasingly marginal adherence to either pattern and a tendency toward suppletion.

1 Namely the contraction of -άων το -ῶν of α-masculines and feminines (1 st declension) in Archai... more 1 Namely the contraction of -άων το -ῶν of α-masculines and feminines (1 st declension) in Archaic Greek. 2 The third person genitive plural των can be found in a few variant forms (e.g. τω/ τωνε/ τουν/ ντουνε/ τνε etc) in

Σε αντίθεση με τις περισσότερες νεοελληνικές διαλέκτους, η γενική των βορείων ιδιωμάτων παρουσιάζ... more Σε αντίθεση με τις περισσότερες νεοελληνικές διαλέκτους, η γενική των βορείων ιδιωμάτων παρουσιάζει πολύ υψηλό βαθμό απώλειας. Η γραμματικοποίηση της πρόθεσης από ως κτητικού δείκτη έχει οδηγήσει στην πλήρη απώλεια της γενικής πληθυντικού, ενώ η γενική ενικού διατηρείται, αλλά με περιορισμένη παραδειγματική παραγωγικότητα. Δεδομένου ότι το φαινόμενο απαντά στην πλειοψηφία των βόρειων ποικιλιών, το παρόν άρθρο στοχεύει στην εξέταση των παραγόντων που προκάλεσαν αυτή τη ραγδαία υποχώρηση της πτώσης, όπως η δήλωση των λειτουργιών του έμμεσου αντικειμένου, η επαφή με άλλες γλώσσες της κεντρικής βαλκανικής και ο βόρειος φωνηεντισμός.

Journal of Greek Linguistics, 2015

This thesis examines the morphological retreat of the genitive case in Greek from a diachronic an... more This thesis examines the morphological retreat of the genitive case in Greek from a diachronic and dialectological perspective. In order to understand this change, I will lay out the greater picture of the Greek case system and the morphological features of the genitive (cf. stress patterns), while special attention will be paid to the functional restriction of the genitive, despite its merger with the dative in Southern Greek during the medieval period.

1 Regarding the paradigm of masculine nouns ending in -ης and -ας, the homonymy between genitives... more 1 Regarding the paradigm of masculine nouns ending in -ης and -ας, the homonymy between genitives and accusatives singular such as (του) ναύτη/ (τον) ναύτη is the result of the loss of final ν and does not constitute an actual morpho-syntactic syncretism. The only true morpho-syntactic syncretism other than in the personal pronouns can be found in the masculine genitive and accusative plural of Cypriot Greek (e.g. το σπίτι τους βοσκούς "the house of the shepherds").