From Fusion to Agglutination: The Case of Asia Minor Greek

Abstract

This article examines the nominal inflectional system of a group of Asia Minor Greek dialects (Dawkins , ), which developed, in parallel with the fusional inflectional system, an agglutinative one due to language contact with Turkish. We argue that the ‘old’ fusional ending or the theme vowel was reanalyzed as part of the nominal stem. This novel structure was actualized by means of two competing options: in some dialects, the reanalysis was actualized transparently in all inflectional forms rendering an agglutinative pattern of inflection, whereas in dialects with limited agglutination the actualization took the form of a special type of vowel assimilation. More specifically, as part of the nominal stem, the ‘old’ theme vowel signals its merge with the root by allowing it to absorb some or all of its features. Formally, the phonological process is treated as an instance of indirect licensing (Walker 2011), according to which the theme vowel acts as a trigger due to its privileged position as a segment of the categorizer n, i.e. the head of the stem.

Agglutinative Noun Inflection in Cappadocian

“…As Turkish does this universally, so the Greek has done in his own language what he habitually does when he talks Turkish, and used his own endings -ja and -ju in the Turkish agglutinative way" (1916: 98). Dawkins' line of reasoning is followed by Janse (2001;2004;2018 Ralli (2009), Spyropoulos and Kakarikos (2009;2011), Karatsareas (2011;, Melissaropoulou (2017) and, implicitly, Revithiadou, Spyropoulos and Markopoulos (2017).…”

“…These have received a lot of interest since Thomason and Kaufman called this textbook example of "heavy borrowing" "startling in an Indo-European language" (1988: 219). Apart from stray references in the text-and handbooks mentioned above the following detailed studies have appeared in recent years: Janse (2004), Karatsareas (2011Karatsareas ( , 2016 and Revithiadou, Spyropoulos & Markopoulos (2017).…”

The History and Etymology of CappadocianFšáx‘Child’, PharasiotFšáxi‘Boy’

“… For recent discussion of agglutinative noun inflection in Cappadocian see Janse (2004; 2019), Karatsareas (2016), Revithiadou, Spyropoulos & Markopoulos (2017), Spyropoulos & Kakarikos (2011). …”