Neuter heteroclisis in Asia Minor Greek: origin and development
Karatsareas, P. 2011. Neuter heteroclisis in Asia Minor Greek: origin and development. Neoelliniki Dialektologia [Modern Greek Dialectology]. 6, pp. 111-135.
Karatsareas, P. 2011. Neuter heteroclisis in Asia Minor Greek: origin and development. Neoelliniki Dialektologia [Modern Greek Dialectology]. 6, pp. 111-135.
Title | Neuter heteroclisis in Asia Minor Greek: origin and development |
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Authors | Karatsareas, P. |
Abstract | This study examines the historical origin and the diachronic evolution of heteroclisis, that is, the spread of the use of the inflectional endings -iu and -ion for the formation of genitive singular and plural from neuter nouns ending in -i to nouns of other inflectional classes. The phenomenon is attested in the Asia Minor Greek dialects (Pontic, Cappadocian, Pharasiot, Silliot) but also in the northern Greek dialects of Lesbos, Kydonies and Samos, which suggests that the development should be placed chronologically at a time before the split of the two dialect groups. The analysis of a wealth of dialectal data shows that heteroclisis first emerged as an alternative solution to the problem of stress placement in the genitive singular and plural of proparoxytone masculine nouns in -os and neuters in -o as well as in parisyllabic feminine nouns in -a. From these loci, the innovation later spread to other noun categories that displayed different structural difficulties. The main result of these developments was the morphological association of numbers of nouns with the neuter gender class. |
Keywords | Dialectology, Greek, Asia Minor, Heteroclisis, Neuter, Cappadocian, Pontic |
Journal | Neoelliniki Dialektologia [Modern Greek Dialectology] |
Journal citation | 6, pp. 111-135 |
Year | 2011 |
Publisher | Academy of Athens |
Accepted author manuscript | |
Publication dates | |
Published | 2011 |