The use of the accusative as an indirect object in Northern and Pontic Greek:

a classification of its syntactic range

Elena Anagnostopoulou¹, Dionysis Mertyris² & Christina Sevdali³

University of Crete¹ & Ulster University^{2, 3}

One of the most important isoglosses in Modern Greek dialectology is the split between dialects that either use the genitive or the accusative to express the indirect object and other related functions inherited from the Ancient Greek dative. Our presentation aims to discuss the findings of fieldwork that was undertaken in the Prefectures of Grevena, Kozani, Pieria and Imathia in Northern Greece in May 2019 with native speakers of the two major dialect groups that employ the accusative as an indirect object (ACC = IO), Northern and Pontic Greek (Manolessou & Beis 2006).

Our research focused on the range of the use of the accusative in the following syntactic contexts:

i) as the third argument (recipient, addressee and source) in ditransitive constructions;

ii) as a beneficiary (indirect object-like or free);

iii) as an experiencer (e.g. with the piacere type of verbs);

iv) as the (non-direct object) second argument of verbs that can denote a mixed comitative/goal role (e.g. with μιλάω“speak”, μοιάζω “resemble”);

v) as a locative goal (e.g. with έρχομαι “come”) and source (e.g. with ξεφεύγω “slip away”);

vi) as an external possessor;

vii) as an ethical dative.

A number of criteria were used with regards to the range of the use of the accusative in these syntactic domains:

i) differences between nominal phrases and personal pronouns (strong and clitics);

ii) differences between the imperative and other moods;

iii) the possible role of definiteness, number, gender and the distinction between proper and common nouns;

iv) word order;

v) the use of ACC = IO in passive constructions;

vi) the significance of clitic doubling, namely the grammaticality of an ACC = IO nominal phrase without the presence of a pronominal clitic.

Preliminary results suggest the following main points. First, quite clearly the accusative is used in all of these syntactic domains in both dialect groups without the parallel use of the genitive (apart from exceptions in the mixed type of the variety of Siatista, Kozani Prefecture).

Second, the use of the ACC = IO in passive constructions is extremely limited. Third, the role of clitic doubling is crucial when the accusative is used as a non-direct object second complement in Northern Greek, as opposed to Pontic Greek. Finally, Pontic Greek does not allow constructions with accusative raised possessors and ethical datives (e.g. *φίλησόν με [1sg.ACC] τα παιδία “kiss the children on my behalf”). These findings are of high significance not only for the understanding of the synchronic status of the use of the accusative in these dialect groups, but also for the diachronic comprehension of the loss of the dative in early Medieval Greek and the split that it caused between GEN = IO and ACC = IO dialects in the Greek-speaking world. This latter point will also be addressed in our presentation by comparing our findings to ACC=IO constructions in vernacular Medieval and early Modern Greek texts (cf. Manolessou & Lentari 2003).

References

Μanolessou, I. & S. Beis. 2006. Syntactic isoglosses in Modern Greek dialects. The case of the indirect object. In M. Janse, B. D. Joseph & A. Ralli (eds), Proceedings of the 2^nd international conference on Modern Greek dialects and linguistic theory (MGDLT 2). Mytilene, Greece, 30 September – 3 October 2004, 230–235. Patras: University of Patras.

Μανωλέσσου, Ι. & Τ. Λεντάρη. 2003. Η εκφορά του έμμεσου αντικειμένου στη μεσαιωνική ελληνική: εκδοτικά και γλωσσολογικάπροβλήματα. Μελέτες για την ελληνική γλώσσα 23: 394–405.