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Abstract The entry surveys the history and the development of Gk. nominal paradigms, from Myc. Gk. up to the Koine, with a focus on case syncretism, that is, the reduction of the case system. Case syncretism had the effect of reducing the number of cases. It can be better understood in terms of spread of stable and superstable markers, along with ongoing elimination of markers with low token frequency.…

Abstract Semantic roles related to causation are agent, cause, instrument and intermediary, while the status of force and means as independent semantic roles in Greek is controversial. Agents …

Abstract Conjunction reduction, or coordination reduction, occurs when some common feature of two coordinated sentences or clauses, which is overtly encoded in the first, is not repeated in the second. In Gk. conjunction reduction applies both to the subject and to the direct object. In addition, grammatical categories can also be subject to conjunction reduction. Conjunction reduction, or coordination reduction (Harris Delisle 1978), occurs when some common feature of two coordinated sentences or clauses, which is overtly encoded in the first, is not re…

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Abstract The Greek gender system consists of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, and largely coincides with the reconstructed gender system of PIE. Gender assignment rules are partly semantic (animate nouns are most often assigned gender based on the sex of the referents), partly morphological (e.g. no nouns in the - ā- declension are assigned neuter gender; various derivational suffixes assign gender to derivative nouns), and partly arbitrary. To some extent, the evolution of gender is connected with the evolution of inflectional classes.   As noted in Wurzel (1989), different inflectional classes tend to be connected with extra-morphological properties. In Greek, nouns belonged to one specific inflectional class by virtue of their phonological properties (type of stem), but from a very early stage - ā- stems were increasingly assoc…

Abstract The most important translation of a literary text in the ancient world is the translation of the Bible. In the case of both the Old and the New Testament, Gk. has served as the basis for translations into other languages. Such translations have been the vehicle for the spread of gramm…

Abstract Descriptions of Greek abound: according to Joseph (1987:437), “[w]ith the possible exception of English, there has probably been more written on the Greek language than on any other language.” However, in works by typologists Greek does not often feature among languages included in samples. Indeed, typologists would have much to learn from Greek as it presents a number of characteristics which are undoubtedly of interest for language typology. Some of these are summarized in this entry. …

Abstract Clitics are prosodically deficient items which bear no lexical accent of their own and consequently need to lean on another accented element, the so-called host. The host and its clitics constitute a clitic group. Cross-linguistically, clitics belong to a small yet heterogeneous number of word classes: they are often pronouns, auxiliaries, copulas, determi…