Angeliki Alvanoudi
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
aalvanoudi@enl.auth.gr

The present study offers a construction grammatical account of question-word interrogatives followed by the vocative-based markers vre/ more. Previous work has demonstrated that vre and more have a range of interpersonal, epistemic and textual functions (Alvanoudi, 2023), namely they are used, inter alia, for mitigating potential face threat in disagreements, conveying counterexpectation to the speaker or the addressee, claiming the addressee’s attention, and beginning a new topic. This study focuses on the use of turn-final vre and more in question-word interrogatives (e.g. ti les vre? pu more?). Question-word interrogatives request specific information (the who, what, when, where, how and why) about a given state of affairs and anticipate an answer that provides the information requested. Yet, on certain occasions, question-word interrogatives carry out invitations/proposals or challenges (e.g. Koshik, 2003) and, thus, are not interpreted as information-seeking questions.

Conversation analysis of data from naturally occurring interactions in Greek shows that question word interrogatives-plus-vre/more do not implement requests for information: a) they index speaker’s disagreement and operate as turn projecting devices that preface accounts and do not invite an informing action in next turn; b) when employed as repair initiation formats, these constructions deal with problems of expectation or acceptability, problematize the trouble-source and invite a clarification/explanation or correction of expectations rather than a simple informing. Turn-final vre and more operate as affective stance markers with evaluative and epistemic overtones, i.e. they convey that the speaker is partially knowledgeable with respect to what the question word has asked and register that the turn constructional unit to which they are appended is performing an action other than a request for information.

Despite their subtle meaning differences, vre and more are functionally similar, because they occur in the same structural context, i.e. in turn-final position after a question-word interrogative. The analysis shows that other vocative-based markers, such as re or kale, function in similar ways in the same structural position. In line with Fischer (2010, 2015), I propose that the interpretations the vocative-based markers receive are due to the structural context in which they occur and that the whole sequential structure which consists of a question-word interrogative plus a vocative-based marker targeting the prior speaker’s assertion/informing can be understood as a grammatical construction (Goldberg, 2006).

References

Alvanoudi, A. (2023). Οι λειτουργίες του πραγματολογικού δείκτη βρε στη γλωσσική διεπίδραση. 43η Ετήσια Συνάντηση του Τομέα Γλωσσολογίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, 4-7 Μαΐου.

Fischer, K. (2010). Beyond the sentence: Constructions, frames and spoken interaction. Constructions and Frames 2(2), 185–207.

Fischer, K. (2015). Conversation, construction grammar, and cognition. Language and Cognition 7(4), 563–588.

Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koshik, I. (2003). Wh-questions used as challenges. Discourse Studies 5(1), 51–77.

Angeliki Athanasiadou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
angath@enl.auth.gr

The presentation puts forward a Cognitive Linguistics approach to a figure long thought to be a rhetorical device. Lakoff, first, discussed paragon as a reasoning process: paragons are models used to “represent either an ideal or its opposite” (Lakoff, 1987, p. 87). Proper names are the constructional devices that seem to be the ideal candidates for paragon terms. They are used by speakers since their frames constitute rich frame knowledge. When proper names are modified by constructional devices such as particular types of adjectives (synchroni Mideia ‘today’s Medea’), or when they fall in the context of the XYZ construction (O Χ einai o Kain tou adelfou tou ‘X is his brother’s Cain’), figurative extensions are evoked. Such extensions from the “literal” (the typical use of “unique reference”) to the “figurative” for some scholars are instances of conceptual metaphor (Peña-Cervel & Ruiz de Mendoza, 2022), or instances of conceptual metonymy (Barcelona, 2004; Lakoff, 1987), or even a combination of the two conceptual mechanisms (Brdar-Szabó & Brdar, 2020).

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that, in addition to metaphor and metonymy, conceptual frames facilitated by particular construction types evoke paragons. It is claimed, therefore, that paragon is not synonymous with metaphor or metonymy, nor that paragon is a marginal figurative mechanism. It is a kind of reasoning related to a rich resource of beliefs and models in a specific culture. Proper names, modified by constructional devices, seem to activate frames which in turn give rise to hyperbolic and intensified interpretations.

References

Barcelona, A. (2004). Metonymy behind grammar: The motivation of the seemingly “irregular” grammatical behavior of English paragon names. In G., Radden & K.-U. Panther (Eds.), Studies in Linguistic Motivation (pp. 357-374). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Brdar-Szabó, R., & Brdar, M. (2020). The Bruce Willis of sandwiches: The Y of X is Y of Z construction on its journey towards a paragon model, as one way of achieving intersubjectivity. Diadorim, 22( 2), 277–302.

Lakoff, G.(1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Peña-Cervel, M. S., & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Fr. J. (2022). Figuring out figuration. A cognitive linguistic account (Figurative Thought and Language 14). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Thomi Dalpanagioti
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
thomdalp@enl.auth.gr

This study aims to contribute to the emerging body of constructionist research on Greek by illuminating the path from identification to presentation of a construction family. Reports on constructicon projects for languages such as English (Perek & Patten, 2019), German (Ziem et al., 2019) and Swedish (Lyngfelt et al., 2018) highlight that their long-term goal is to account for form-meaning pairings of varying sizes, complexity and abstraction, thus covering the whole grammar-lexicon continuum; yet their first and primary focus is on capturing semi- schematic constructions that combine both lexical and grammatical properties. Such constructions are particularly interesting and challenging because, lying between grammar and lexicon, they have been overlooked and not considered within the scope of either grammar or lexicon. Despite differences among constructicon resources in description format, annotation technicalities, workflow or scope, constructicographic work involves identifying constructions and describing their special properties of form and meaning, but also linking constructions with frames and with each other in networks or families (Boas, 2013).

In this context and in an attempt to apply constructicographic practices to Greek data, we present a case study of three semi-schematic constructions comprising the family of interrogative-negative exclamations. Following Lyngfelt et al.’s (2018) suggestion for using patterns recorded in dictionaries as “points of departure for identifying more general constructions” (p. 56), we first examine the entries for the interrogative pronouns τι ‘what’, ποιος, -α, -ο ‘who’, and πόσος, -η, -ο ‘how much/ many’ in three comprehensive dictionaries of Modern Greek. What we observe is that uses recorded as fixed multiword expressions (e.g. Ποιος στραβός δε θέλει το φως του; in ΛΚΝ), constructional idioms (e.g. και τι δεν…! in ΧΛΝΓ), or mere examples (e.g. Πόσες φορές δεν του είπα να προσέχει! in ΛΝΕΓ) provide clues to a more general emphatic pattern of the form Interrogative Pronoun + δεν + VP, which is then further investigated in corpus data retrieved from ΕΘΕΓ. We discuss the FORM (syntactic, morphological, phonological) and MEANING (semantic, pragmatic, discourse-functional) properties of (και) ποιος δεν + VP ‘anyone + VP’, (και) τι δεν + VP ‘anything + VP’, and (πόσοι,-ες,-α και) πόσοι,-ες,-α + NP δεν + VP ‘many + NP + VP’ as members of the construction family of interrogative-negative exclamations, which evoke the frame Quantified_mass. By way of conclusion, we argue for the possibility of incorporating constructionist insights into Greek online dictionaries and compiling construction entries for a Greek constructicon.

References

Boas, H. (2013). Cognitive construction grammar. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar (pp. 233–252). OUP.

Lyngfelt, B., Bäckström, L., Borin, L., Ehrlemark, A., & Rydstedt, R. (2018). Constructicography at work: Theory meets practice in the Swedish construction. In B. Lyngfelt, L. Borin, K. Ohara, & T. Torrent (Eds.), Constructicography: Constructicon development across languages (pp. 41–106). John Benjamins.

Perek, F., & Patten, A. (2019). Towards an English constructicon using patterns and frames. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 24(3), 354–384.

Ziem, A., Flick, J., & Sandkühler, P. (2019). The German construction project: Framework, methodology, resources. Lexicographica, 35, 15–40.

[ΕΘΕΓ] Εθνικός Θησαυρός Ελληνικής Γλώσσας. https://hnc.ilsp.gr/
[ΛΚΝ] Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής. (1998). Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη.
[ΛΝΕΓ] Λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας. (2012). Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας.
[ΧΛΝΓ] Χρηστικό λεξικό της νεοελληνικής γλώσσας. (2014). Ακαδημία Αθηνών.

Vasiliki Geka¹ & Anna Piata^2
1University of West Attica & Hellenic Air Force Academy, ²National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
bessygk4@yahoo.gr, piata.anna@gmail.com

Adopting a Construction Grammar (CxG) approach and aligning with the core mission of the model to account for language ‘in toto’ (Goldberg, 2006, p. 18) and offer holistic analyses of constructions, i.e., units of form and meaning, arranged along a continuum of (full) schematicity to (full) substantivity, the present paper seeks to make a case for a particular sub- construction of the well-entrenched ‘AS + IMPERFECTIVE PAST’ in Modern Greek. Contributing to, and extending, the fast-growing body of constructionist applications on multimodality (Dancygier & Vandelanotte, 2017), we focus on the recently trending pattern of “ας έστελνε(ς)” (‘as éstelne(s)’), as in (1) below, with particular emphasis on its occurrence in multimodal data, and suggest that it stands as a case of creative ‘stretching’ of its licensing template, whose conventionalised semantics-pragmatics is prototypically instantiated by “ας πρόσεχε(ς)” (‘as prόsexe(s)’):

1. «– Γιατί του έσπασες το αμάξι; – Ας έστελνε. – Αφού δεν τα έχετε. – Ας με ήθελε.»

      “– Why did you wreck his car? – He should have texted me. – But you’re not a couple.      – He should have wanted me.”

Integrating insights from research on the polysemy of “ας”/‘as’, its tense-, and aspect-related collocates (Nikiforidou, 1996; Vasilaki, 2023), we argue that “ας έστελνε(ς)” exhibits both inherited and ‘sui generis’ properties that motivate its semantics, discourse-pragmatics, contextual collocates (or lack thereof), and its emergent free-floating discourse standing that enables its development into a humorous meme. Against this background, we specifically aim to respond to the following: a) What are the inherited and idiosyncratic properties that license the semantics and discourse-pragmatics of the pattern? b) Does it invite (or pair with) any contextual regularities? And c) what do multimodal data suggest for its felicitous use and humorous function? In responding to the above, we ultimately put forth that “ας έστελνε(ς)” has inherited specific properties of ‘AS + IMPERFECTIVE PAST’. These include a form of latent conditionality – evinced in its couching of counterfactuality and lack of fulfilment – and the semantics-pragmatics of reprimand, prototypically instantiated in 3^rd-person singular. However, the empirical evidence we examine points to the fact that its increased conventionalisation has motivated the development of further properties, particular to it. These encompass its consistent predilection for “στέλνω” (‘stélno’) as its verbal filler, idiosyncratically featuring with no nominal complement, and invariably paired with the illocutionary force of reprimanding, albeit in a playful/mitigated manner. In this context, the pragmatic import of the pattern is shown to transcend the meaning of its components, evoking unmet expectations in couple dating and thereby triggering humorous discourse effects. In examining the data collected, we further observe that the construction manifests contextual detachability and independence, departing from its original bi-clausal (condition-apodosis) form which, as will be proposed, is compensated for visually in multimodal data. Finally, the cases of nominalised or adjectivised “ας έστελνε(ς)” encountered in the data, as in «Βίκυ Σταυροπούλου: Αυτό είναι το απόλυτο ‘ας έστελνε’…» and «Η ας έστελνε φωτογραφία του Κριστιάνο…» not only foreground the construction’s humorous effect at the level of conventionalised discourse but also crucially point to emergent lexicalisation processes.

References

Dancygier, B., & Vandelanotte, L. (2017). Internet memes as multimodal constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 28(3), 565–598.

Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nikiforidou, K. (1996). Modern Greek as: A case study in grammaticalization and grammatical polysemy. Studies in Language, 20, 599–632.

Vasilaki, N. (2023). The Modern Greek particle as: The distinctive properties of construction AS + IMPERFECTIVE PAST [Unpublished MA dissertation]. NKUA.

Dimitra Ioannou
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
dioannos@gmail.com

The aim of this paper is to show how Construction Grammar (Fried, 2015) approaches compositionality focusing on the Greek EXO NA constructions. In the literature there has been noted a “strange” EXO NA construction that defines a time span during which an event did not occur, even though there is not a negative element in the sentence (Iatridou, 2014; Moser, 1993):



According to Iatridou (2014, p. 221), the temporal measure phrase is an necessary component of the construction and the compositionality issue that arises is that the meaning of the construction, as a whole is not derived from EXO NA with the addition of the temporal measure phrase. However, corpus data reveal that while a necessary condition, the presence of a temporal phrase is not a sufficient one for delimiting the construction since several minimal pairs with the same temporal adjunct that instantiate different constructions cf. (1) vs. (2):



While a traditional view on compositionality would assume that (2) is compositionally derived and (1) is not, adopting a constructional approach I argue that each linguistic expression is licensed by two different licensers. In the CxG model, constructions (form and meaning pairings) may incorporate certain attributes and values of their constituent parts, while at the same time exhibit their own idiosyncratic features that do not result from their internal composition (Fried & Östman 2004, p. 25).

Interestingly, even though the constituent parts of the two constructions are the same (V NP NA), the difference in meaning along with strong collocational preferences for each construction (based on relative frequency counts of the corpus data, drawn from the CGT (Goutsos, 2010)) and identifiable tendencies regarding the word order allow us to conclude that there are two distinct yet related constructions; the more general question that arises is how the two constructions are connected to the overall network of EXO NA constructions.

References

Fried, M. (2015). Construction grammar. In T. Kiss & A. Alexiadou (Eds.), Syntax – Theory and analysis. An international handbook (pp. 974–1003). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fried, M., & Östman, J.-O. (Eds.). (2004). Construction grammar in a cross-language perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Goutsos, D. (2010). The corpus of Greek texts: A reference corpus for Modern Greek. Corpora, 5(1), 29–44.

Iatridou, S. (2014). About determiners on event descriptions, about time being like space (when we talk), and about one particularly strange construction. Natural Language Semantics, 22(3), 219–63.

Moser, A. (1993). Γραμματικοποίηση και βοηθητικά ρήματα [Grammaticalization and auxiliaries].” Μελέτες για την Ελληνική Γλώσσα, 14, 161–175.

Koletti Erasmia
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
ekolett@enl.uoa.gr

Construction Grammar, the theory aiming to syntactically describe grammatical phenomena in terms of constructions (i.e. conventionalized form-meaning pairings), has extended its scope by demonstrating its explanatory potential for language acquisition phenomena, namely, construction learning (Goldberg, 2009). L2 construction learning is a usage-based process determined by cognitive properties of category learning: frequency of input, prototypicality and contingency of form-meaning associations (Ellis & Wulff, 2020). The development of aspectual morphology is on the whole considered to be influenced by lexical aspectual categories (the Aspect Hypothesis) in a process initially matching verbal morphology to semantically compatible predicates, later expanding to less prototypical combinations (Bardovi-Harlig & Comajoan-Colomé, 2020). Tense-aspect construction learning universal routes from prototypes to marginal members (Wu & Wang, 2022) are (like every L2 acquisitional process) susceptible to L1 effects (Zeng et al., 2021).

The present work exploits the usefulness of a constructionist approach in acquisitional research (Goldberg, 2006) to trace the developmental route of the progressive construction in English L2 data drawn from a custom-made learner corpus comprising written tasks by Greek learners at levels A2-C2 of the Common European Reference Framework. The progressive construction learning is found to be a process of prototype formation with learners initially relying on prototypical predicate-progressive associations – the pathbreaking chunks triggering the learning process – while productively expanding the progressive to less prototypical contexts with the increase of proficiency level. The route is analyzed in terms of three variants of usage- based construction learning: frequency, contingency and prototypicality, as measured in the data. The lack of a distinct progressive morphological marker in the learners’ L1 as well as the lack of a morphological distinction for the present tense perfective/imperfective distinction, seems to interact with learner language proficiency level to jointly affect the process of input- based prototype progressive formation. The effect of this complex interactional pattern on our learner data is mainly traced in the spread of stative progressives.

References

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Comajoan-Colomé, L. (2020). The aspect hypothesis and the acquisition of L2 past morphology in the last 20 years: A state-of-the-scholarship review. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(5), 1137–1167. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263120000194

Ellis, N. C., & Wulff, S. (2020). Usage-based approaches to L2 acquisition. In B. VanPatten, G. D. Keating, & S. Wulff (Eds.), Theories in Second Language Acquisition (3rd ed., pp. 63–82). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429503986-4

Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language (1^st  ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268511.001.0001

Goldberg, A. (2009). The nature of generalization in language. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(1), 93–127. https://doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.005

Wu, T., & Wang, M. (2022). Development of the progressive construction in Chinese EFL learners’ written production: From prototypes to marginal members. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 18(2), 307–335. https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2020- 0029

Zeng, X., Shirai, Y., & Chen, X. (2021). Universals and transfer in the acquisition of the progressive aspect: Evidence from L1 Chinese, German, and Spanish learners’ use of the progressive -ing in spoken English. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 59(2), 267–292. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2017-0078

Nikos Koutsoukos¹ & Laura A. Michaelis^2
1University of Patras, ²University of Colorado Boulder
nkoutsoukos@upatras.gr, Laura.Michaelis@colorado.edu

A foundation of Construction Grammar is the idea that patterns of sign combination at all levels of structure, including that of complex words, are licensed by constructions (Goldberg, 2006). Such constructions are effectively ‘headless,’ because it is a non-head expression, including an affix or article, that determines the grammatical category and meaning of the mother sign (Koutsoukos & Michaelis, 2020). For example, the Modern Greek derived formation χορευτής [xoreftis] ‘dancer’ denotes a nominal sign despite the fact that its stem (head) is a verb: [X]_VERB -τη(ς)]_NOUN ↔ ‘ONE WHO dances’. Key to the constructional approach is the idea of mutual selection: just as an affix (or other non-head element) selects its adjacent sign, the stem element selects its affix. But what happens if that stem is not of the type typically selected by the non-head sign? Must a mysterious operator or other ghostly element hover (or intervene) between stem and affix to ensure necessary adjustments occur?

In this paper, we examine Modern Greek adjectives with the negative prefix α– [a] (also called  alpha  privative) that  are  derived  from  nouns,  e.g., [ά-στεγ(ος)]_ADJECTIVE [asteɣos]‘homeless’ < [στέγ(η)]_NOUN [steʝi] ‘roof’ (formatives within parentheses indicate inflectional suffixes). Similar structures can be found with other prefixes or prefixoids as well, as in δύσμορφ(ος) [ðismorfos] ‘malformed’ (cf. Ralli, 2013). In these structures, we observe a shift of the category of the base from noun to adjective, with a concomitant semantic shift: the derived adjective expresses the property of ‘lacking X’, where X stands for what the base denotes. Critically, we encounter neither the combination of the prefix with the base, as in *asteʝi, nor shift of the category of the base without the prefix, as in *steɣos. The presence of the prefix appears to be a necessary condition for the formation of the adjective. But if we accept the premise that derivational prefixes and inflectional suffixes do not change the syntactic category of the base in Modern Greek (cf. Ralli, 2013), we cannot attribute the categorial shift of the base, or the semantic properties of the adjective, to any overt element of the structure. Similar questions have been raised for cases of conversion (or zero derivation) in English, as in bridge (nouns) > bridge (verb). The question that we address is how to account for these changes within a constructionist approach.

Conversion or zero-derivation has been represented as rebracketing (cf., among others, Booij, 2010; Traugott & Trousdale, 2013; Van Goethem, 2017) or double co-indexation between related schemas (Jackendoff & Audring, 2020). Although these approaches succeed in capturing the relationship between lexemes with shared phonological form but divergent lexical categories and meanings, they do not discuss in detail how these forms may interact with other processes. We revisit the notion of zero derivation with Sign-Based Construction Grammar (SBCG) (among others, Michaelis, 2013; Sag, 2012). SBCG conceptualizes grammar as an inventory of signs. Constructions are the means by which simpler signs are combined into more complex signs at both the word and phrase level. Among these constructions are derivational (‘box-over-box’) constructions, which represent lexeme-lexeme relations as literal unary-branching local trees in tree structures. Such constructions ‘feed’ both prefixation (a derivational construction) and inflection (an inflectional construction) by ensuring that the stem is of the right type to be selected by the affix sign. These lexical constructions replicate the effect of coercive (semantic and morphosyntactic adjustment) processes found in strings like waters, where the count-noun- selecting plural suffix combines with a mass noun. Koutsoukos & Michaelis (2020) evoke such semantic-enrichment processes in their description of implicit multiple exponence involving derivational endings in Greek and English, e.g., bestest, scarify, ψηλαφ-ίζ(ω) [psilafízo] ‘palpate’.

References

Booij, G. (2010). Construction morphology. Oxford: OUP.

Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: OUP.

Jackendoff, R., & Audring, J. (2020). The texture of the lexicon: Relational morphology and the parallel architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koutsoukos, N., & Michaelis, L. A. (2020). Pleonastic complex words as functional amalgams. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34, 199–212.

Michaelis, L. (2013). Sign-based construction grammar. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 133–152). Oxford: OUP.

Ralli, A. (2013). Compounding in Modern Greek. Dordrecht: Springer.

Sag, I. (2012). Sign-based construction grammar: An informal synopsis. In H. C. Boas & I. A. Sag (Eds.), Sign-based construction grammar (pp. 61–196). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Traugott, E. C., & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: OUP.

Van Goethem, K. (2017). Lexical categories and processes of category change. Perspectives for a constructionist approach. Zeitschrift für Wortbildung/Journal of Word Formation 1(2), 31–61.

Sofia Marmaridou
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
smarmari@enl.uoa.gr

In line with recent constructionally-oriented work on supra-clausal patterns (Antonopoulou & Nikiforidou, 2011; Nikiforidou, 2021, etc.), the present paper, explores (a) the construction apo mena ine ne/oçi, systematically associated with TV contest shows, as in (1) below, whereby a judge approves of the participation of a candidate in the contest, and (b) its recycling in other contexts, as in (2), in which the development of a Russian corona-virus vaccine is applauded by the speaker of a humorous TV programme.

• kiapo _“from” mena _{pro. pers. 1st p. sing. Acc. “me”} ine _{3rd p. “be”} ne _“yes”

And from me it is yes (GNTM, 8.9.2019)

• apo _“from” mas _{pro. pers. 1st p. pl. Acc. “us”} ine _{3rd p. “be”} da _{“yes” in Russian}

From us it is “da” (yes in Russian). (Radio Arvila, 11.11.2021)

Direct observation and search on You Tube and language corpora confirm that this pattern, an extra-grammatical neologism in the language, is functionally motivated and qualifies as a genre-based construction. A criterion for the systematicity of associating discourse-sensitive contextual information with a particular construction is transferability, typically a source of humour, which indicates the degree of entrenchment and conventionalization of a linguistic form for a particular discourse setting. The examination of apo mena ine ne/oçi indicates that, apart from its humorous exploitation, its use extends to genre-based, yet clearly non- humorous, occurrences, as well as instances that provide no indication of genre specificity. At this point, the following questions emerge: (a) Apart from humorous exploitation, what other kinds of evidence does the recycling of this construction provide for its genre specificity? (b) Since the genre specificity of this construction is variable, what are the features of the construction that on the one hand motivate, and on the other constrain variability? In relation to (a), it will be shown that, in recycling, meta-comments concerning the TV show in which the construction originates, and/or the action accompanying the construction, attest to its genre specificity. In response to (b), it is noted that a feature systematically associated with the recycling of this construction is variation in its form, as shown in (2) above. It is also observed that it constitutes a responsive unit in discourse structure. It will be argued that substitutability in its form increases frequency of occurrence, primes its recycling in contexts other than TV shows, and enhances productivity. At the same time, recycling is constrained by pragmatic features, such as speech act function and discourse role. On this evidence, it will be proposed that apo mena ine ne/oçi, along with other genre constructions that will be exemplified, exhibits constructionally motivated synchronic variability (Marmaridou, 2012), motivated by analogical extension (Hilpert, 2013, p. 471). It follows from the above that variability extends to genre-based constructions, while it may eventually lead to more general schemas, such as “apo _{NPagent/origin Acc.} ine _{3rd p. be} NP_inan., inviting further additions to the range of expressions occurring in this now partly schematic idiom. To the extent that this is a valid point, it lends support to the constructional motivation of language variation, genre being a relevant construction attribute.

References

Antonopoulou, E., & Nikiforidou, K. (2011). Construction grammar and conventional discourse: A construction-based approach to discoursal incongruity. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 2594–2609.

Hilpert, M. (2013). Corpus-based approaches to constructional change. In Th. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar (pp. 458–475). Oxford: OUP.

Marmaridou, S. (2012). The constructional motivation of indefinite generics in Modern Greek. Constructions and Frames, 4(1), 24–55.

Nikiforidou, K., (2021). Grammatical variability and the grammar of genre: Constructions, conventionality, and motivation in ‘stage directions’. Journal of Pragmatics ,173, 189–199.

Amalia Moser
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
amoser@phil.uoa.gr

Conditionals are among the first grammatical forms to have been studied as constructions within the field of Construction Grammar in its various versions and they continue to attract some interest (see e.g. Dancygier, 1998; Nikiforidou & Torres Cacoullos, 2010; Sweetser, 1990). This paper will deal with the evolution of complex conditionals of the if-then type in Greek from the Classical to the Modern era, a process that has led from a plethora of forms in Ancient Greek (accompanied by an equal plethora of analyses, which recognize any number of conditional types between four to nine) to a less extensive and more regular system in Modern Greek (see e.g. Tsangalidis, 2012). The analysis in this paper will be limited to conditionals that express true hypotheses about possible situations and their outcomes. Among the main theoretical questions to be addressed will be whether the history of this type of conditionals in Greek should be seen as a case of constructional change or constructionalization in the sense of e.g. Traugott & Trousdale (2013) and Traugott (2015) and whether this change is related to grammaticalization phenomena in the verbal system of Greek.

Selected References

Athanasiadou, A., & Dirven, R. (Eds.) (1997). On conditionals again. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Barðdal, J., Smirnova, E., Sommerer, L., & Gildea, S. (Eds.) (2015). Diachronic construction grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Dancygier, B. (1998). Conditionals and prediction: Time, knowledge and causation in conditional constructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dancygier, B. & Sweetser, E. (2009). Mental spaces in grammar: Conditional constructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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