Janse, Mark

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Contact-Induced Grammaticalization: Evidence from Asia Minor Greek Mark Janse (Roosevelt Academy / Ghent University) MGDLT3 (Nicosia, 14-6 June 2007)  Grammaticalization is a type of linguistic change involving two distinct but related processes: (1) the conversion of a lexical item to a grammatical item, which in turn can be converted to an even more grammatical item; (2) the conversion of a discourse strategy to a grammatical structure, which in turn can be converted to an even more grammatical structure. Paradoxical-ly, grammaticalization may result in degrammaticalization: the loss of grammatical function. This paper discusses a phenomenon which I will call contact-induced grammaticalization. It involves the reanalysis of grammatical items in L1 due to the borrowing of grammatical patterns from L2.  The evidence to be discussed is taken from several Asia Minor Greek dialects, viz. Cappa-docian, Lycaonian and Bithynian, which originated as indigenous Greek dialects in the Byzantine period, but became increasingly turkicized during and after the Turkish conquest of Asia Minor. The linguistic and sociolinguistic status of these dialects and their subdialects is controversial: some can be considered Greek dialects “in the full genetic sense”, whereas the others are clearly “over the border of nongenetic development” (Thomason & Kaufman).  In these dialects, the 3sg past copula (i)ton/(i)don, (i)tun/(i)dun or (i)tan/(i)dan acts like the Turkish past copula -(y)DI and is used in the formation of the pluperfect. In Turkish the per-sonal marker can be attached to either the perfective past suffix or to the past copula. In Bithynian, Lycaonian and Cappadocian (here illustrated), the past copula is attached to the personal marker:  (1a) írt-a-tun-Ø (1b) gel-di-m-di   come.PF-1sg-COP-3sg  come-PF-1sg-COP-3sg  (2a) *írt-e-tun-me (2b) gel-di-ydi-m   come.PF-3sg-COP-1sg  come-PF-COP.3sg-1sg  On the analogy of this formation, other TMA formations have been created: a past con-ditional and a negative present. Whereas the past copula in Turkish is usually considered an inflectional suffix in the grammatical literature, the status of the past copula in Asia Minor Greek is less clear, as it can be attached to a postverbal object and thus behaves like an en-clitic rather than an inflectional suffix.  Although attested only sporadically, the Cappadocian dialect of Semendere presents an intriguing case of contact-induced degrammaticalization which will be revealed and discussed in the paper.  

Contact-induced grammaticalization: evidence from Asia Minor Greek

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/2963781/file/2963782.pdf

Contact-induced grammaticalization: evidence from Asia Minor Greek

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography