Coptic Interference in the Syntax of Greek Letters from Egypt

Abstract

Egypt in the early Byzantine period was a bilingual country where Greek and Egyptian (Coptic) were used alongside each other. Historical studies along with linguistic studies of the phonology and lexicon of early Byzantine Greek in Egypt testify to this situation. In order to describe the linguistic traces the language-contact situation left behind in individuals’ linguistic output, this study analyses the syntax of early Byzantine Greek texts from Egypt. The primary object of interest is bilingual interference in the syntax of verbs, adverbial phrases, and clause linkage as well as in semi-formulaic expressions and formulaic frames. The study is based on a corpus of Greek and Coptic private letters on papyrus, which date from the fourth to mid-seventh centuries, originate from Egypt, and belong to bilingual, Greek-Coptic, papyrus archives. The study shows that deviations from the standard pattern fall into three categories, i.e. bilingual interference, SLA-related errors, and internal confusion of patterns. There is a marked difference as to the extent to which deviations, and interferences in particular, affect syntactic domains. The degree of complexity of the syntactic structure in question as well as the degree of divergence from the corresponding Coptic structure seem to play a role. There is also a marked difference as to the extent to which deviations affect different types of contexts (i.e. free, semi-formulaic, and formulaic contexts). The degree to which constraints are imposed on structures in each type of context seems to play a role. Finally, it appears that the way writers assimilated patterns can explain a large number of deviations. Interferences account proportionately for fewest deviations vis-à-vis SLA-related errors and the internal confusion of patterns.

Support‐Verb Constructions with Objects:Greek‐CopticInterference in the Documentary Papyri?1

“…17–18). The letter shows several instances of deviation from the expected standard in syntax and phraseology (Fendel 2022: chap. 10).…”

“…38–39). Given these contextual factors together with the fact that the accusative object in (10) is a one‐off in the papyri in an unestablished type of the support‐verb‐construction family surrounding ἐγγύην egguēn , it seems that a bilingual writer confused the simplex‐verb and support‐verb‐construction patterns, something that happens between two simplex verbs of similar semantics too (Fendel 2022: chap. 5).…”

“…In (16.a), an accusative case appears, in (16.b), a partitive. Some productive alternations in Greek are levelled in the postclassical period (Fendel 2022: chap. 4 §33 with further references).…”

Contact‐Induced Changes in Morphosyntax: An Introduction

“…AND ROBIN MEYER University of Oxford and University of Lausanne (Submitted: 30 September, 2023;Accepted: 6 October, 2023) The study of language contact and contact-induced change has seen a rise in scholarly attention since Weinreich's Languages in Contact (1953), and especially after Thomason & Kaufman's (1988) Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Since then, numerous textbooks and handbooks (Heine & Kuteva 2005;Matras 2007Matras , 2020Hickey 2010Hickey , 2017, edited volumes (Aikhenvald & Dixon 2001, 2007Braunm€ uller et al 2014;Bianconi et al 2022), monographs (Chamoreau & L eglise 2012Coghill 2016;Fendel 2022;Meyer 2023; Bianconi forthcoming) and dissertations, both on modern (Bisiada 2014) and on ancient (Capano 2020) languages have appeared. These dealt with a wide variety of aspects of language contact from different vantage points, frameworks and approachesfor instance, Thomason's (2001) socio-structural approach vs. Myers-Scotton's (2002) purely structural, model-based one.…”

Towards a Typology of Contact‐Induced Change: Questions, Problems and the Path Ahead

“…e.g. recent studies on Greek and Anatolian(Bianconi 2019), Greek and Coptic(Fendel 2022), and Armenian and Parthian(Meyer 2023). 9 For a critical view of the notion of 'typological distance' and its value for contact linguistics, cf Meyer (2019)…”