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Article published In: Diachronica
Vol. 39:3 (2022) ► pp.369–408

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Never just contact

The rise of final auxiliaries in Asia Minor Greek

 | University of Cambridge, Queens’ College
ORCiD logo with link | University of Cambridge, Queens’ College
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.17048.neo
Abstract
In this article, we investigate the diachronic developments that gave rise to final auxiliaries – a hallmark of head-final syntax – in Asia Minor Greek, a cluster of Greek varieties originally spoken in the area historically known as Asia Minor (present-day Anatolia, Turkey) within the recent developments of the generative framework, i.e., the minimalist program. We propose that the original source for the final auxiliaries in Asia Minor Greek is to be found in Hellenistic Greek conditionals, whereas it can be traced back to Medieval Greek pluperfects. The role of contact with Anatolian Turkish is limited to rendering the available – albeit pragmatically marked – Verb-Auxiliary as the only available order. Importantly, this bottom-up change did not switch Asia Minor Greek from harmonic head-initial to harmonic head-final, but, rather, made it a mixed-directionality language. In minimalist terms, we propose that attrition, one of the ways that language contact manifests itself, targets SEM-uninterpretable features; from this point onwards contact may or may not ensue depending on the feature (mis)match between the two languages.
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous examinons les développements diachroniques qui ont donné naissance à des auxiliaires finaux, qui sont typiques d’une syntaxe à tête finale, dans le grec d'Asie Mineure, groupe de parlers se situant à l’origine dans l’aire appelée autrefois Asie Mineure (l'Anatolie de la Turquie actuelle). Notre proposition est que la source originelle de ces auxiliaires finaux en grec d'Asie Mineure est à rechercher dans le grec hellénistique pour les conditionnels, et dans le grec médieval pour les plus-que-parfaits. Le contact avec le turc d'Anatolie a seulement abouti à ce que l'ordre Verbe-Auxiliaire, déjà disponible mais pragmatiquement marqué, devienne le seul ordre disponible dans la langue. Il est important de noter que ce changement de type bottom-up (au sens de Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts. 2014. A syntactic universal and its consequences. Linguistic Inquiry 45(2). 169–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) n'a pas provoqué un passage de l'ordre harmonique à tête initiale propre au grec d'Asie Mineure vers un ordre harmonique à tête finale, mais a conduit à l'émergence d'un système a direction mixte. En termes minimalistes, notre proposition est que les traits (sémantiquement) non-interprétables sont ciblés par l'attrition, une des manifestations du contact langagier; à partir de là, le contact peut intervenir ou non, selon que les propriétés des deux langues concordent ou pas.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Artikel untersucht die diachronen Entwicklungen, die zur Stellung von Auxiliaren in finaler Position, einem spezifischen Merkmal von kopf-finaler Syntax, in einem Cluster griechischer Varietäten (Asia Minor Greek) geführt hat, die ursprünglich in der Region, die historisch als Kleinasien (das heutige Anatolien, Türkei) bekannt ist, gesprochen wurden. Wir nehmen an, dass die Ursprünge der Auxiliare in finaler Satzstellung dieses Varietätenclusters in Konditionalsätzen des Hellenistischen Griechisch liegen, wohingegen sie für das Plusquamperfekt im Mittelgriechischen zu finden sind. Die Rolle, die Sprachkontakt mit dem anatolischen Türkischen spielt, beschränkt sich darauf, dass die Abfolge Verb-Auxiliar, die pragmatisch markiert ist, sich als einzig mögliche herauskristallisiert hat. Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass dieser Wandel von unten (im Sinne von Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts. 2014. A syntactic universal and its consequences. Linguistic Inquiry 45(2). 169–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) nicht dazu führte, dass sich das untersuchte Varietätencluster von einer harmonisch kopf-initialen zu einer kopf-finalen Sprache entwickelt hat, sondern dass eine Sprache mit gemischter Direktionalität entstanden ist. Aus minimalistischer Perspektive formuliert, nehmen wir an, dass Sprachkorrosion (language attrition), die als eine Konsequenz von Sprachkontakt gilt, Auswirkungen auf die SEM-nicht-interpretierbaren Merkmale hat; davon ausgehend kann Sprachkontakt dann abhängig von der Merkmal(in)kompatiblität zwischen den beiden Sprachen angenommen werden oder nicht.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Phylogeny, historical context and methodology
    • 2.1Phylogeny and historical context
    • 2.2Methodology of the present study
  • 3.Micro-variation in Asia Minor Greek auxiliary constructions
    • 3.1Final auxiliaries in negated nonveridical conditionals (apodosis) in Asia Minor Greek
    • 3.2Final auxiliaries in counterfactual conditionals (protasis) in Asia Minor Greek
    • 3.3Final auxiliaries in counterfactual conditionals (apodosis) in Asia Minor Greek
    • 3.4Final auxiliaries in counterfactual matrix clauses in Asia Minor Greek
    • 3.5Final auxiliaries in pluperfect (anterior in the past) matrix clauses in Asia Minor Greek
  • 4.The syntax of the AUX-V structures
  • 5.Reconstructing the rise of final auxiliaries in Asia Minor Greek: Incipient stage
    • 5.1The original source for final auxiliaries in conditionals is Hellenistic Greek
    • 5.2The original source for final auxiliaries in pluperfects is Medieval Greek
  • 6.Reconstructing the final stage of the rise of final auxiliaries in Asia Minor Greek: Contact-induced change
    • 6.1The sociolinguistic record
    • 6.2Modelling a contact scenario for the rise of final auxiliaries in Asia Minor Greek
    • 6.3Predictions: From head-initial to head-final in Cappadocian
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Lavidas, Nikolaos, Ioanna Sitaridou & Igor Yanovich
2025. 11 Introduction. In Towards a Holistic Understanding of Language Contact in the Past, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Neocleous, Nicolaos & Ioanna Sitaridou
2025. Word order and information structure in Romeyka. Frontiers in Psychology 16 DOI logo
Sitaridou, Ioanna & Jerneja Kavčič
2023. Petnajst let terenskih raziskav romejščine: ključne ugotovitve o jeziku ter o njegovem razvoju, vitalnosti in možnostih preživetja. Keria: Studia Latina et Graeca 25:2 ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo

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