The Greek demonstratives - History and Syntax

Outline 

The Greek demonstratives 

History and Syntax 

Cristina Guardiano 

Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia 

cristina.guardiano@unimore.it 

ICGL 9 

University of Chicago - October 29-31, 2009 

Cristina Guardiano The Greek demonstratives. History and syntax

Outline 

Outline 

1 Parametric theories and demonstratives 

2 Demonstratives in Greek 

3 Diachronic changes? 

4 (Selected) References 


Parametric theories and demonstratives 

Part I 



Background 


1 Universal 1 → All languages have demonstratives 

2 Demonstrative → Definiteness sphere 

Expresses a specific definiteness relation: the individuation of the 

referent depends on contextually-related information 

3 Demonstrative and the definite article 

Definite article ⇒ default definiteness (but also person and 

reference) operator 

Demonstrative ⇒ complex definiteness ⇒ deixis 

1 Proper deixis → essential reference to properties of the 

extralinguistic context of the utterance where they occur 

2 Extended deixis → the referent is indentifiable on the basis of general 

contextual information 


Background 















Background 
















Intrinsecally definite elements 

Hypothesis 

Demonstratives encode a subset of definiteness features, which allow 

them to entail the definite reading of the whole DP. 

Such features are syntactically related to the D-area. 


Syntactic behavior 


DP (nominal domain) 

transitive function: Dem belongs to a DP that contains other 

constituents: the noun, the article, adjectives, . . . 

intransitive function: Dem plays the syntactic role(s) of a whole DP. 

Sentence 

Adverbs 

Copular verbs 


Syntactic behaviour 


Empirical generalization 

All demonstratives (no matter of their meaning distinctions) behave 

uniformly within the same language 


Syntactic behaviour 


1 DP-internal distribution 

2 Syntactic structure 

1 basic position 

2 relationship with D 


Hypothesis 1 


Two different demonstratives 

1 D-Dem → always surfaces in the D area and usually has a strong 

deictic force; can act as a definiteness (person) operator 

2 d-Dem → never surfaces in the D area and normally has a ‘weaker’ 

deictic force 


Hypothesis 2 


There exists an universal position within the DP where the 

demonstrative is generated. 

The different configurations available crosslinguistically are 

the consequences of movement (of the demonstrative itself, 

or of other DP-constituents), and are predictable on a parametric basis. 


Hypothesis 2 


There exists an universal position within the DP where the 

demonstrative is generated. 

The different configurations available crosslinguistically are 

the consequences of movement (of the demonstrative itself, 

or of other DP-constituents), and are predictable on a parametric basis. 



Basic position of Dem 

Dem 



Movement of D-Dem to the D-area 

Dem 



Co-occurrence with the article 

1 D-Dem → D-area → in certain languages they act as definiteness 

(person) operators, i.e. they contextually license an empty D 

2 d-Dem → in languages where D must be overtly filled 

(grammaticalized definiteness), they co-ccur with the article 


Parameters 


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) 

(1) ± d-Dem - - - + + + + 

(2) ± D-Dem +1 0 0 0 + + - + 

(3) ± Strong D-Dem -1, +2,+OvD + 0 - + - 0 0 


Demonstratives in Greek 

Part II 



Premises 


The distribution of the Greek demonstratives, i.e. the available 

word order options, has remained constant throughout the 

history of the language, from Ancient to Modern Greek (. . . ); 

however, the lexical items participating in it have not. 

[Manolessou 2002:119] 


Modern Greek 


Greek has a bipartite system with two demonstrative forms, 

αυτός and εκείνος, 

roughly correposnding to the English this and that, respectively. 

For the dichronic development from the Ancient Greek tripartite system to the 

Modern Greek bipartite one, and for the semantic intepretation of the present 

system, see Manolessou (2002) 



DPs without any modifier of the noun 

1 αυτό το βιβλίο 

2 το βιβλίο αυτό 

3 *το αυτό βιβλίο 

4 *αυτό βιβλίο 

5 *βιβλίο αυτό 



Summary for (standard) Modern Greek 

Two available positions: 

1 DP-initial → D-Dem 

2 Postnominal → d-Dem 

Co-occurrence with the article → YES, always 


Positions 


DP-initial position: genuinely ostensive (deictic) 

Post-nominal position: has a discourse anaphoric function (used to 

point to the linguistic context) 

(Panagiotidis 2000: 723; see also Manolessou and Panagiotidis 1999, 

Grohmann and Panagiotidis 2004) 


Position 


The [...] two demonstratives of Modern Greek, αυτός and εκείνος, as 

established in Manolessou-Panagiotidis (1999), express the distinction 

deictic vs anaphoric through alternative word orders: deixis involves the 

demonstrative in the pre-article position and anaphora placement in the 

postnominal position. 

[Manolessou 2002:130] 


DPs with one adjective 

1 αυτό το καλό βιβλίο 

2 το καλό αυτό βιβλίο 


3 * (??) το καλό βιβλίο αυτό (possible only with comma intonation) 

4 εκείνο το ωραίο σπίτι 

5 το ωραίο εκείνο σπίτι 

6 * (??) το ωραίο σπίτι εκείνο (possible only with comma intonation) 



DPs with one adjective: additional evidence 

1 αυτοί οι τέσερις ανθρώποι 

2 οι τέσερις αυτοί ανθρώποι 

3 * (??) οι τέσερις ανθρώποι αυτοί (possible only with comma 

intonation) 

4 εκείνη η πέμπτη συμφωνία 

5 (?) η πέμπτη εκείνη συμφωνία 

6 * (??) η πέμπτη συμφωνία εκείνη (possible only with comma 

intonation) 



DPs with more than one adjective 

1 αυτοί οι νέοι συμπαθητικοί κάτοικοι της πόλις 

2 οι νέοι αυτοί συμπαθητικοί κάτοικοι της πόλις 

3 αυτοί οι νέοι συμπαθητικοί Γερμανοί κάτοικοι της πόλις 

4 οι νέοι αυτοί συμπαθητικοί Γερμανοί κάτοικοι της πόλις 



Demonstratives and adjectives in Modern Greek 

In Modern Greek structured adjectives are prenominal (with the 

exception of polydefinite constructions) 

When one or more adjectives are visible in the DP, the demonstrative 

follows the first adjective 


A proposal 


The (non DP-initial) demonstrative always surfaces immediately after the 

first lexically ‘heavy’ element of the DP. 

We will tentatively suppose that it behaves as a syntactic clitic. 



Demonstratives and genitives 

1 αυτοί οι κάτοικοι της πόλις 

2 οι κάτοικοι αυτοί της πόλις 

3 * οι κάτοικοι της πόλις αυτοί (possible only with comma 

intonation) 

Modern Greek has a low structural genitive (GenO) → in unmarked 

constructions the demostrative never occurs to the right of this low 

structural genitive 



Demonstratives and prepositional complements 

1 εκείνο το σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

2 το σπίτι εκείνο με τους δύο κήπους 

3 * το σπίτι με τους δυο κήπους εκείνο (possible only with comma 

intonation) 



Demonstratives and other modifiers 

1 εκείνο το ωραίο σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

2 το ωραίο εκείνο σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

3 το ωραίο εκείνο το σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

4 * το ωραίο σπίτι με τους δυο κήπους εκείνο (possible only with 

comma intonation) 



Demonstratives and other modifiers 

1 εκείνο το ωραίο μου σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

2 εκείνο το ωραίο σπίτι μου με τους δύο κήπους 

3 το ωραίο μου εκείνο σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

4 το ωραίο μου εκείνο το σπίτι με τους δύο κήπους 

5 * το ωραίο μου σπήτη εκείνο με τους δύο κήπους 

6 * το ωραίο μου σπίτι με τους δυο κήπους εκείνο (possible only with 

comma intonation) 


A further parameter 


MG 

(1) ± d-Dem + 

(2) ± D-Dem +1 + 

(3) ± Strong D-Dem -1, +2,+OvD - 

(4) ± Clitic d-Dem +1 + 


Ancient Greek 

Database 

1 Plato 

2 Gospels 



Premises 


The ClGr demonstrative system is tripartite, consisting of the 

pronouns ὅδε, ἥδε, τόδε - οὗτος, αὕτη, τοῦτο - ἐκεῖνος, ἑκείνη, 

ἐκεῖνο, traditionally held to correspond to deictic contrasts 

related to the three persnal pronouns, with a further distinction 

between textually cataphoric ὅδε vs. anaphoric οὗτος. 

[...] In the post-classical era, the pronoun ὅδε gradually 

disappears, remaining only in legal expression and other fixed 

expressions. [...] 

The NT has only two demonstratives, οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος, 

usually in postnominal position, possibly as a result of semitic 

influence, and pre.nominally for reasons of emphasis [...] οὗτος 

is both deictic and anaphoric, having invaded all territories 

where ὅδε was employed before. 

(Manolessou 2002, 120) 


Note 


ὅδε behaves like the definite article 

οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος behave as Modern Greek αυτό and εκείνο 

1 They always co-occur with the article 

2 They surface in more than one position 


Summary 

1 * οὗτος λόγος 

2 * ἐκεῖνος λόγος 

3 * λόγος οὗτος 

4 * λόγος ἐκεῖνος 

5 οὗτος ὀ λόγος 

6 ἐκεῖνος ὀ λόγος 

7 ὀ λόγος οὗτος 

8 ὀ λόγος ἐκεῖνος 

9 * ὀ οὗτος λόγος 

10 * ὀ ἐκεῖνος λόγος 




DP-initial demonstratives 

1 καὶ ἐγὼ τὸν ῎Ευενον ἐμακάρισα εἰ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἔχοι ταύτην τὴν 

τέχνην καὶ οὕτως ἐμμελῶς διδάσχει 

Plato, Ap 20 b 8-c 1 

2 καὶ αὐτῶν αὕτη ἡ πλημμέλεια ἐκείνη τὴν σοφίαν ἀποκρύπτειν 

Plato, Ap 22 d 8 

3 σημαίνει τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὅτι .. 

Plato, Crat 399 c 1 

4 ἐκείνοι οἱ γεωργοί πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς εἶπαν 

Mark 12, 7 

5 ἦν γὰρ μεγάλη ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνου τοῦ σαββάτου 

John 19, 31 



Postnominal demonstratives 

1 καὶ συνέφυγε τὴν φυγὴν ταύτην καὶ μετὰ ὐμῶν κατῆλωε 

Plato, Ap, 21 a2 

2 ἀλλὰ φέρε, παῖ, φάναι, τὸν ψυκτῆρα ἐκεῖνον 

Plato, Sym 213 e 2 

3 καὶ τὸ ἑκάστῳ φύσει πεφυκὸς ὄνομα τὸν νομοθέτην ἐκεῖνον εἰς 

τοὺς φθόγγυς καὶ τὰς συλλαβὰς δεῖ ἐπίστασθαι τιθέναι 

Plato, Crat 389 d 5 

4 τό γε ὅνομα τοῦτο φαίνεται αὐτῷ διὰ ταῦτα κεῖσθαι 

Plato, Crat 413 d 2 



Postnominal demonstratives 

1 οὐ δυνήσεται ἡ οἰκία ἐκείνη στῆναι 

Mark 3, 25 

2 ἐκ τοῦ ὄχλου οὗν ἀκούσαντες τῶν λόγων τούτων ἔλεγον 

John 7, 40 

3 ἠκολου΄θει δὲ τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ Σίμων Πέτρος καὶ ἄλλος μαθητής: ὁ δὲ 

ματητὴς ἐκεῖνος ἦν γνωστὸς τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ 

John 18, 15 



Summary of the data (Guardiano 2003) 

οὖτος→ 178 (123 Plato; 55 New Testament) 

ἐκεῖνος→ 32 (15 Plato; 17 New Testament) 

Remark → Plato: 7 cases without the article, all with proper names 



Preliminary summary for Ancient Greek 

Position 

DP-initial → D-Dem 

Postnominal → d-Dem 

→ more frequent in Classical Greek (96 vs. 35) 

→ more frequent in New Testament Greek (45 vs. 27) 

Co-occurrence with the article → YES, always 


Data 


οὖτος ὁ λόγος ὁ λόγος οὖτος 

Ap 20 8 

Symp 23 11 

Crat 53 16 

Plato 96 35 131 

73.3 26.7 100 

οὖτος ὁ λόγος ὁ λόγος οὖτος 

Mark 8 22 

John 19 23 

NT 27 45 72 

37.5 62.5 100 



Different positions = different meanings? 

Traditionally explained as a consequence of informational markedness 

(e.g. Rjiksbaron 1993, Devine and Stevens 2000). 

1 Pre-nominal position → Topic, contrastive focus 

2 Post-nominal position → When the emphasis is on the noun 

Manolessou (2000): relatively free word order; it happens to be 

conditioned uniquely by stilistic, pragmatic, lexical constraints. 



DPs with adjectives: attested orders 

1 οὖτος ὁ καλὸς λόγος 

2 ὁ καλὸς οὖτος λόγος 

3 ὁ καλὸς λόγος οὖτος 

Informationally marked construction: appositive function (comma 

intonation) 

(Parenti 1997) 


Data 


1 οὐκοῦν καὶ τῶν νῦν οἴει ἄν φάναι αὐτὸν εἴ τις ἀγαθός ἐστιν 

ἐκείνου τοῦ χρυσοῦ γένους εἶναι. . . 

Plato, Crat 398 b 1 

2 βλέπεις ταὺτας τὰς μεγάλας οἰκοδομάς; 

Mark 13, 2 

3 καταυηφιεῖσθε τοῦ τὰ ἐλεινὰ ταῦτα δράματα εἰσάγοντος 

Plato, Ap 35 b 7 


Ancient Greek 


When no adjectives are in the DP, the demonstrative surfaces after the 

noun 

When one or more adjective is in the DP the demonstrative surfaces 

immediately after the first adjective (the noun does not cross over any 

adjective) 



Ancient and Modern Greek: summary 

ClGr NTG MG 

(1) ± d-Dem + + + 

(2) ± D-Dem +1 + + + 

(3) ± Strong D-Dem -1, +2,+OvD - - - 

(4) ± Clitic d-Dem +1 + + + 


Diachronic changes? 

Part III 




Grico: a Greek dialect spoken in Salento 

Two demonstrative forms: a proximal (itto) and a distal one (iso/uso) 

1 itti antrepi 

2 iso spiti 

3 iso spiti me diu cipu 

4 iso orrio spitimmu me diu cipu 

The demonstrative is DP-initial and never co-occurs with the article, like 

in Salentino (the Romance dialect spoken in Salento) or Italian. 


Parameters 


ClGr NTG MG Gri Sal It 

(1) ± d-Dem + + + - - - 

(2) ± D-Dem +1 + + + 0+ 0+ 0+ 

(3) ± Strong D-Dem -1, +2,+OvD - - - + + + 

(4) ± Clitic d-Dem +1 + + + 0 0 0 



Grico: Greek or Romance? 

Noun movement: adjectives 

1 melètisa ton orrio libbro (I read the nice book) 

2 ida ton àntrepo giòveno (I met the young man) 

3 lu ritrattu famosu (the famous picture) 

4 la màkina nòa bblu teteska (the new blue German car) 


Noun movement 



Genitives 


1 o bbuttijuna tu krasìu (the bottle of wine) 

2 u litrattu tu ciuruti (the picture of the father) 

3 lu ritrattu famosu te la Maria (the famous picture of Mary) 


Grico and Greek 



Salentino and Romance 



Summary 


1 Genitives ⇒ like homeland Greek 

2 Noun movement ⇒ like Romance 

3 Demonstratives ⇒ like Romance 

⇒ more sensible to contact-induced change 


Parameters 


ClGr NTG MG Gri Sal It 

(1) ± free Gen + - - - + + 

(2) ± uniform Gen + 1 + 0 0 0 - - 

(3) ± GenO -1, -2 0 + + + - - 

(4) ± GenS -1 or -2, +1 or +3 0 - - - - - 

(1) ± N over ext.arg. + + + + + + 

(2) ± N over GenO - + + + 0 0 

(3) ± N over As +1 or +2 0 - - + + + 

(4) ± N over M2 +3 0 0 0 + + + 

(5) ± N over M1 +4 0 0 0 + + - 

(6) ± N over high As + 5 0 0 0 ? + 0 

(7) ± N over cardinals + 6 0 0 0 - - 0 

(1) ± d-Dem + + + - - - 

(2) ± D-Dem +1 + + + + - + 

(3) ± Strong D-Dem -1, +2,+OvD - - - + + + 

(4) ± Clitic d-Dem +1 + + + - - - 


(Selected) References 

Part IV 

Selected References 


Selected references 


Alexiadou, Artemis, Liliane Haegeman and Melita Stavrou (2007) 

Noun Phrase in the generative perspective, Berlin, Mouton de 

Gruyter. 

Anderson, S. and E. Keenan (1985) Deixis. In: Language typology 

and syntactic description, vol I, Cambridge, Cambridge University 

Press, 259-307. 

Bernstein, Judy (1997) Demonstratives and reinforces in Romance 

and Germanic languages. Lingua 102, 87-113. 

Bernstein, Judy (2001) The DP Hypothesis: Identifying Clausal 

Properties in the Nominal Domain. In: M. Baltin and C. Collins 

(eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, Oxford 

UK: Blackwell, 536-561. 

Brugè, Laura (2002) The position of demonstratives in the extended 

nominal projection. In: G.Cinque (ed) Functional structure in DP 

and IP: the catography of syntactic structures, OUP, 15-53. 




Cinque, Guglielmo (2005) Deriving Greenberg’s universal 20 and its 

exceptions. Linguistic Inquiry 36 3: 315–332. 

Davies, Martin (1982) Individuation and the semantics of 

demonstratives. Journal of Philosophical Logic 11, 287-310. 

De Mulder, Walter (1992) Demonstratives and the localist 

hypothesis. In: M. Kefer and J. van der Auwera, Meaning and 

grammar, crosslinguistic perspectives, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 

265-278. 

Diessel, Holger (1999a) Demonstratives. Form, function and 

grammaticalization. Philadelphia, John Benjamins. 

Diessel, Holger (1999b) The morphosyntax of demonstratives in 

synchrony and diachrony. Linguistic Typology 3, 1-49. 




Grohmann Kleanthes e Phoevos Panagiotidis (2004) Demonstrative 

doubling. Ms University of Cyprus. 

Guardiano, Cristina (2003) Struttura e storia del sintagma nominale 

nel greco antico, Phd Dissertation, Università di Pisa. 

Leonetti, Manuel (2000) The asymmetries between the definite 

article and demonstratives: a procedural account. Paper presented 

at the 7th International Pragmatic Conference, Budapest, July 2000. 

Longobardi, Giuseppe (2001) The Structure of DPs: some principles, 

parameters and problems. In: M. Baltin and C. Collins (eds), The 

Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, Oxford UK: 

Blackwell, 562-603. 

Longobardi, Giuseppe and Cristina Guardiano (2008) Evidence for 

syntax as a signal of historical relatedness. Lingua, special issue The 

forests behind the trees, ed. by John Nerbonne and Franz Manni, 

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.09.012. 




Lyons, Christopher (1999) Definiteness. Cambridge, Cambridge 

University Press. 

Manolessou, Io (2000) Greek Noun Phrase Structure: a Study in 

Syntactic Evolution, PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge. 

Manolessou, Io (2002) The Evolution of the Demonstrative System 

in Greek, Journal of Greek Linguistics 2, 119-148. 

Panagiotidis, Phoevos (1999) Demonstratives, determiners and 

operators: the case of Greek. Lingua 110, 717-742. 

Stavrou, Melita e Jeoffrey Horrocks (1990) Clitics and 

Demostratives within the NP. In: Studies in Greek Linguistics. 

Proceedings of the 10th Annual Meeting of the Department of 

Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of 

Thessaloniki, 9-11 May 1989, Thessaloniki, Kyriakidis, 225-246. 


Thank you! 


A copy of this presentation, with the bibliography, 

will be available on my homepage: 

http://cdm.unimo.it/home/dipslc/guardiano.cristina/ 

The crosslinguistic DP-database is (partially) available on: 

http://www.units.it/ linglab/ (under construction)

The Greek demonstratives - History and Syntax

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