Tlie aim of this study is to investigate how native speakers of Greek assign gender to nouns. The main question concerns the role that the morphophonological information encoded on noun suffixes plays in the assignment of gender values by native speakers. To that end, novel nouns were created combined with the different nominal suffixes so that the role of the suffix could be investigated independently of any lexical and/or semantic effects. Monolingual, native speakers of Greek were asked to use these novel nouns by providing an agreeing definite article thus indicating the corresponding gender value. Tlie experiment was conducted both orally and in written form, so that potential effects of phonological as opposed to orthographic information could be examined. Following the experiment, probability values (predictive values) were calculated for each noun suffix based on the participants’ interpretations, which were then compared to counts of frequency co-occurrence of each suffix with each gender value in the language. The results are discussed with respect to theoretical models of gender assignment and lexical access, while lexicalist approaches to morphology are also addressed.

Abstract In this paper we investigate the role of prosodic means in framing humour within conversational narratives. In particular, we focus on whether, how, and why jab lines as basic turn constructional units in a humorous narrative turn are marked off by prosodic features. Our aim is twofold: a) to investigate, by means of statistical tests, if jab lines are systematically segmented by pauses and by differentiation in speech rate and intensity; b) to analyse the conversational and pragmatic functions of the prosodic features under scrutiny within humorous conversational narratives. The data examined comes from 3 conversations between 2 adolescent girls (different ones in each conversation) and includes 22 humorous conversational narratives. The conversational narratives contain 170 jab lines, which are checked for the occurrence of pauses before and after them, and are measured for speech rate and intensity using the Praat software. Based on the results of our quantitative and qualitative analysis, we argue that pauses surrounding jab lines and prosodic differentiation in speech rate and intensity, either in isolation or in combination with one another, are systematically employed by the narrators in order to signal, delimit, and underline jab lines.

Th e Journal of Greek Linguistics (JGL) is an established peer-reviewed international journal dedicated to the descriptive and theoretical study of the Greek language from its roots in Ancient Greek down to present-day dialects and varieties, including those spoken in Asia Minor, Cyprus, Tsakonia, and the Greek diaspora. It aims to off er a focused outlet for publication of fi rst-class research in Greek Linguistics, broadly construed. JGL's goal is not only to reach linguists interested in the Greek language but also to engage the linguistics community and Hellenists more generally. Th e input to JGL will thus comprise any topic relevant to Greek linguistics, in the broadest sense, but with some preference given to material with wider relevance to specifi c subfi elds within linguistics proper. Th e intention is therefore on the one hand to encourage discussions and research that illuminate diff erent aspects -theoretical, historical, and descriptive -of general linguistics using Greek data, and on the other hand to off er innovative solutions to problems and issues specifi c to the description and analysis of the Greek language.

Abstract Although conversation analysis (CA) has been widely employed in different languages, its application to Greek talk-in-interaction is still quite limited. For this reason, in our introduction we summarise briefly the foundations of CA and present international and Greek CA bibliography on different areas of analysis in a manner that will be accessible to conversation analysts of various interests but also to researchers who are new to the field. We begin by outlining the foundations of CA and then offer a brief background to its development and its relationship to other disciplines. The empirical basis of CA is stressed by focussing on the process of collecting and transcribing data for CA and the method and units of analysis. We also give background information on the main CA areas of analysis (grammar-and-interaction, prosody, narrative analysis, institutional interaction, feminist CA, membership categorisation analysis, multimodal interaction). Finally, we present a brief overview of past studies of Greek talk-in-interaction and conclude with a summary of the articles of the Special Issue. By placing the emphasis on the fine-grained, turn-by-turn analysis, its ethnomethodological underpinnings and the understanding of social action, our aim is to set the tone for this Special Issue and to encourage future study of Greek conversational data and cross-cultural comparisons.

Analogical change is often invoked to explain evolutionary patterns witnessed in gender systems, despite the fact that analogy as a linguistic principle is still relatively poorly understood. Taking an apparently simple analogical change from the history of Greek as a starting point, namely the shift of 2nd declension nouns in -os from the Feminine gender to the Masculine, this paper demonstrates that such changes in gender can best be explained from the point of view of category formation rather than by traditional conceptions of analogy (proportional analogy, levelling, etc.). It argues instead that usage patterns (frequency, saliency) and principles of animacy best explain the phenomena witnessed and, in contrast to other accounts of changes in gender, it focuses on principles of change in the gender of individual words. Detailed and quantitative historical data for a small set of nouns which display this change are also presented which begin to indicate where changes in gender first take place in the paradigm. The results suggest that highly animate nouns may play an important role in restricting certain changes within the gender system as a whole. This new approach offers potentially fruitful avenues for further research on principles of analogical change and their application to the evolution of grammatical gender.

Abstract I examine in this article the discourse function of the Greek connectives jati, epiδi, and afu. After tracing a general theoretical framework for discourse connectives, I focus on the discourse function of jati and epiδi in comparison with English because. On the basis of that examination, I then study the function of afu. My aim in this article is to expose the instructions that the aformentioned connectives carry for the articulation of discourse. This is a matter of how these small words contribute to the making of complex discourse units, offering a conceptual core with particular procedural meanings and communicating cognition in particular linguistic ways.

Abstract The present paper treats the different types of formation and the inflectional patterns of the active imperfect of the verbs that in traditional grammar are known as verbs of the ‘2nd conjugation’ in the Peloponnesian varieties of Modern Greek (except Tsakonian and Maniot), mainly from a diachronic point of view. A reconstruction of the processes that led to the current situation is attempted and directions for further possible changes are suggested. The diachrony of the morphology of the imperfect of the ‘2nd conjugation’ in the Peloponnesian varieties involves developments such as morphologization of a phonological process and the evolution of number-oriented allomorphy at the level of aspectual markers, while at the same time offering interesting insights into the mechanisms and scope of morphological changes and the morphological structure of the Modern Greek verb. These developments can also offer important evidence for the process of dialectal differentiation of Medieval/‘Early Modern’ Greek.