The infinitive as a morphosyntactic category. The case of Griko and neighbouring Romance dialects

Giuseppe Torcolacci

University of Leiden

1. Introduction, data and aim of the study

To date, Griko and Greko dialects, on a par with Pontic varieties, are the only Modern Greek varieties that feature the presence of infinitives in their grammars (cf. Joseph 1990; Ralli 2016). With reference to data collected by the author in the area where Griko varieties are spoken, the purpose of this study is to consider:

i. The contexts where infinitives are attested in Griko dialects spoken nowadays;

ii. The nature of infinitives of Griko dialects as well as of neighbouring Romance dialects (Salentino).

Infinitives in Griko dialects spoken today are attested only after the modal verb can. Other modals and verbs in main position, conversely, have the faculty of selecting na-clauses, i.e. finite verbs introduced by the particle na (cf. 1):

(1) Dialect of Sternatìa

a. sòzzo milìsi can.pres.1sg speak.inf.

b. è nna milìso must.sg that speak.pres.1sg

c. ta kùo na milìsone them hear.pres.1sg that speak.pres.3pl

d. tèlo na milìso want.pres.1sg that speak.pres.1sg

Salentino dialects, differently from Griko varieties, feature infinitives after a wider set of verbs in main position, i.e. after the modals can and must, as well as after verbs of perception (cf. 2):

(2) Dialect of Andrano

a. pòzzu cuntàre can.pres.1sg speak.inf.

b. àjju cuntàre must.1sg speak.inf.

c. l aɟɟu ntìsi cuntàre them have.pres.1sg heard speak.inf.

d. vòjju (ku) kkùntu want.pres.1sg (that) speak.pres.1sg

2. Analysis

Based on the above referred data, the gist of this presentation is to propose that infinitives of Griko and Salentino dialects correspond to morphosyntactic units that express a subset of tense, aspect and mood, or TAM, feature values. As for Griko, I postulate that the infinitive versus na-clause alternation observed in (1) hinges upon the type of mood value encoded on the embedded verb (cf. Torcolacci & Livadara 2019). In specific, I postulate that Griko infinitives express ‘realis’, i.e. a mood value encoded on true prepositions headed by subject-oriented modals such as can (cf. Palmer 1990). In the case of speaker-oriented modals such as must (cf. Bybee 1985), conversely, the embedded clause, overtly spelled out by the particle na and a finite verb, encodes the mood value ‘irrealis’. This is due to the fact that na-clauses headed by must are considered as future irrealis infinitives endowed with episodic interpretation (cf. Wurmbrand 2014). As for Salentino dialects, instead, I claim that the infinitive versus finite verb alternation is strictly linked to the uniformity of tense values shared by the main and embedded clause. As a matter of fact, the main and embedded clauses in (2a)-(2c) all share the same time reference, i.e. they refer to the same time-frame, with the exclusion of (2d), where the time reference predicated by the embedded clause is posterior to that predicated by the main clause. In this way, Salentino infinitives behave similarly to simultaneous infinitives (cf. Wurmbrandt 2014), inasmuch as their time reference being uniform with that of the main clause.

References

Bybee, J. 1985. Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Joseph, B. D. 1990. Morphology and universals in syntactic change: evidence from Medieval and Modern Greek. New York: Garland Publishers.

Palmer, F. 1990. Modality and the English modals. London: Longmans.

Ralli, A. 2016. Contact morphology in Modern Greek dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Torcolacci, G. & A. I. Livadara. 2019. The nature of infinitives in Griko-Greek dialects of Southern Italy. In I. Kappa & M. Tzakosta (eds.), Proceedings of the 7^th conference on Modern Greek dialects and linguistic theory (MGDLT 7). Rethymno, 6–8 October 2016, 193–205. Rethymno: University of Crete.

Wurmbrandt, S. 2014. Tense and aspect in English infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry 45: 403–447.