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Changing alignments in the Greek of southern Italy

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Schifano, N 
Silvestri, G 

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pThis article investigates a peculiar pattern of subject case-marking in the Greek of southern Italy. Recent fieldwork with native speakers, coupled with the consultation of some written sources, reveals that, alongside prototypical nominative subjects, Italo-Greek also licenses accusative subjects, despite displaying a predominantly nominative-accusative alignment. Far from being random replacements within a highly attrited grammar, the distribution of these accusative subjects obeys specific structural principles, revealing similarities with historical attestations of the so-called “extended accusative” in early Indo-European. On the basis of these data, Italo-Greek is argued to be undergoing a progressive shift towards an active-stative alignment, a claim supported by additional evidence from auxiliary selection, adverb agreement and sentential word order.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

Greko, Griko, extended accusative, subjects, active-stative alignment

Journal Title

Journal of Greek Linguistics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1566-5844
1569-9846

Volume Title

20

Publisher

Brill

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2015-283)
Leverhulme Trust