'Subject' in English and Greek

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Greek ECM constructions revisited

In the present study we will revisit Greek constructions such as those in (i) which closely resemble English ECM (Exceptional Case Marking) structures.(i)          perimena to jani na fiγi noris(ii)        I expected John to leave earlyThese constructions have been examined by Philippaki-Warburton (1977 and 1987) and by Kakouriotis (1980) within earlier theoretical frameworks and more recently by Philippaki-Warburton and Spyropoulos (1996) within the Minimalist Programme (MP). However, these analyses have overlooked related structures such as those in (iii) which contain in addition an accusative clitic attached to the main verb but associated with the subject of the complement clause.(iii)      ton perimena to jani na fiγi norisThese constructions raise a number of questions concerning (a) the source of the main clause clitic, (b) the syntactic status of the accusative DP [to jani] (case and θ-role assignment) and (c) the connection between the main clause clitic and the main clause verb

Projective vs. interpretational properties of nuclear accents and the phonology of contrastive focus in Greek

Georgakopoulos T, Skopeteas S. Projective vs. interpretational properties of nuclear accents and the phonology of contrastive focus in Greek. Linguistic Review. 2010;27(3):319-346.Nuclear accents have two interesting properties. First, they have a projective property, i.e. they may refer to a focus domain that encompasses a higher syntactic projection. Second, at least for some languages, nuclear accents may have an interpretational property, i.e., they may have alternative realizations that reveal particular interpretations, such as contrast, correction, surprise, etc. The present article examines the interaction between the projective and the interpretational properties of nuclear pitch accents. Based on an experimental study on Greek, we show that the nuclear accent that is interpreted as ‘contrastive’ refers to a local focus domain, i.e., it is not projected to higher layers of the constituent structure. Furthermore, our experimental findings show that these properties interact with syntactic and prosodic markedness, in a way that the canonical word order and the unmarked accentual structure are felicitous in a larger array of contexts than the marked syntactic and accentual configurations

A unified analysis of the future as epistemic modality the view from Greek and Italian

International audienceWe offer an analysis of the Greek and Italian future morphemes as epistemic modal operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings-not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and En-glish will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predic-tive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense-but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes have much in common with epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class