30.4092, Review: Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax: Chatzopoulou (2018)
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Subject: 30.4092, Review: Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax: Chatzopoulou (2018)
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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 10:06:44
From: NATALIA PAVLOU [nataliapavlou at gmail.com]
Subject: Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-494.html
AUTHOR: Katerina Chatzopoulou
TITLE: Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018
REVIEWER: NATALIA PAVLOU, University of Cyprus
SUMMARY
This book was published in January 2019 by Oxford University Press and it is
available as a hardcover, as an ebook and through Oxford Scholarship Online.
It consists of six chapters, starting from an Introduction and background
description of the main data, followed by the theoretical framework of
(non)veridicality which is adopted, and three chapters structured according to
linguistic diachrony in the eras of Classical Greek, Hellenistic-Roman times
and Late Medieval Greek. All the chapters provide a plethora of examples that
provide evidence for the theory of (non)veridicality capturing the
distribution of the Greek negators and making a significant contribution to
the understanding of these in the context of Jespersen’s Cycle. The book
overall makes a novel contribution to the diachrony of Greek semantics and
syntax and encourages new links between existent theories and the historical
development of particular elements.
Chapter 1
The first chapter in the book starts with a description of the main historical
asymmetry between the Greek negators u:k(k[h]) and the item μή /me:/, labeled
as Neg1 and Neg2, which differ in their diachronic development with the first
having been replaced with dhe(n) in Modern Greek and the second having been
preserved. The chapter introduces the viewpoint that the pattern observed
“targets intensified predicate negation and with time transforms it into
propositional negation” (p. 2) and introduces a basic exploration of theories
of language change in historical semantics and syntax. For her diachronic
approach, Chatzopoulou first presents the periodization of Greek following
Markopoulos (2009) and the criteria for the selection of these stages of the
languages and the textual sources that have been used in her investigation.
Examples are based on the chronological stages of Classical Greek, Hellenistic
Greek, Early Medieval Greek, Late Medieval Greek and Post-Medieval Greek and
drawn from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) database, Strabo’s Geographica,
the Greek New Testament, the Epictetus’ Dissertationes ad Arriano, the
Chronicle of Johannes Malalas, the Chronicon Pascalae, the Suda dictionary,
the Chronicle of Morea and other texts. Following this introduction, a summary
and criticism of previous work on the distinction between the two negators is
provided highlighting the relevance of emphatic and nonemphatic negation to
markedness theories. The chapter ends with a discussion of markedness on
veridicality and nonveridicality, with the latter being the marked environment
given its dependence on a different element in the clause and its
nonveridicality syntactic projection. The author concludes with a note on the
relevance of speakers being maximally cooperative and of the role of
Pragmatics in language change and language evolution.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 `The (non)veridicality theory of polarity and negator selection’
introduces polarity aspects that are relevant to the choice of the two
negators in Greek introduced in the previous chapter and more specifically the
(non)veridicality theory as a property of propositional operators (Giannakidou
2006). Modern Greek distinguishes between polarity items that are sensitive
only to negative operators and items that are sensitive to nonveridical
operators in general (Giannakidou 1998). (Non)veridicality also defines mood
choice, which is grammaticalized in the verb morphology and determined by the
semantics of the attitude verbs in embedded contexts. Following this
discussion, the distribution of Neg1 differs from Neg2 in that the latter is
marked in terms of nonveridicality, while Neg1 is unmarked in terms of
nonveridicality. Chatzopoulou shows in this chapter how Modern Greek
“grammaticalizes (non)veridicality within the language system in many ways,
regarding both lexical and functional categories” (p. 31) and supporting the
idea that the theory can apply to different categories based on their
licensing environment. The sensitivity in these environments found in Greek is
also attested in other varieties of Greek as well as cross-linguistically, and
typologically unrelated languages that preserved the dual negation system.
Chapter 3
‘Negation, mood and (non)veridicality in Classical Greek (Fifth to fourth
centuries BC)’ presents evidence from the Attic dialect spoken in
fifth-fourth-century BC, which uses two negators sensitive to
(non)veridicality. In Attic Greek, negators are phrasal as they can appear at
any position preceding the category they are negating, the blocking of head
movement, their positive response to the `why not’ ellipsis test, their
selection of other XPs and their appearance as anaphoric negation markers. The
distribution of the two negators in Attic is immediately explained with
reference to the semantic notion of (non)veridicality with Neg1 being the
unmarked negator and Neg2 licensed in nonveridical environments. Neg2 also
productively shows nonnegative uses as a question particle, as complementizer
and as an attitudinal. The distinction found between the negators also appears
in what Chapter 3 discusses as Neg1-words and Neg2-words with both categories
showing negative morphology and participating in negative concord but with the
Neg2 list of words appearing in nonveridical environments only similarly to
the Neg2 negator. The Neg1 and Neg2- words are assumed to bear an
uninterpretable negative feature [uNeg] with the Neg2-words bearing
nonveridical marking [uNonVer]. This analysis supports the idea of the
presence of a nonveridicality projection in syntax.
Chapter 4
With the presentation of the distribution of Neg1 and Neg2 in Classical Greek,
Chapter 4 `Developments in Hellenistic-Roman times and the Nonveridicality
projection (third century bc to four century ad)’ looks at data from
Hellenistic Koine as found in texts from the first century bc to the second
century ad, showing the relevance of Neg2 to nonveridicality. This is a period
that shows language change that results to homophony between the different
moods expressed on the verb and the change of the subjunctive complementizer
/hina/ into a nonveridical indicator. Examples showing the distribution of the
complementizer provide the basis for the discussion on the broadening of
/hina/ in Koine Greek and its reanalysis as a result of upward featural
micromovement (Roberts & Roussou 2003). This element merges at the
Nonveridicality projection that also hosts other operators, such as question,
imperative, modals and others as well as manifestations of Neg2 in the history
of Greek; All of these are regulated by nonveridicality. In the transition
from Classical Greek to Hellenistic Koine, there is also a word order shift
from SOV to VSO (or OV to VO considering pro-drop) correlating with the Greek
Jespersen’s Cycle, according to the author. Koine Greek also follows the
Classical era in allowing similar distribution of the two negators, namely
/u(k)/ appearing in assertions and other veridical environments like
infinitives, participles, veridical predicates and others. Neg2 /mi/ in Koine
Greek, as well as Neg2-words, appear in all the nonveridical environments as
the relevant examples in the chapter indicate. The frequency of these is
provided in raw numbers and percentages towards the end of the chapter.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 ‘Late Medieval and beyond: the renewal of Neg1’ discusses the third
major stage of spoken Greek regarding the distribution of Neg1 and Neg2. Given
the different registers at the time, the negators develop a variant with which
they are in free variation, namely /udhen/ and /midhen/ and its phonetically
reduced form /dhen/. During this era, the negators undergo a change in
syntactic status from phrase to head and from being a negator of nonveridical
environments to being a Comp-related element based on their appearance as (a)
they are strictly preverbal with only clitics intervening between the negator
and the verb, (b) they do not appear inside the DP and (c) they interfere with
head movement. The latter also results in the unavailability of True Negative
Imperatives since the overt negator blocks head movement from V-to-C. In
addition, Neg2 /mi(n)/ cannot appear in conditional protasis with the
possibility of the negator to have shifted syntactically and be competing with
the conditional particle both in Late Medieval and in Standard Modern Greek as
a case of upward lexical micromovement. In summary, this period documents the
change of the syntactic status of Neg1 and Neg2 and the ban of Neg2 from the
conditional protasis that relies on its reanalysis.
Chapter 6
Following the chapters describing change in the history of Greek negation, the
chapter on `Renewal and stability: One full Jespersen’s Cycle’ proposes the
idea that out of the two negators, Neg1 underwent a completed Jespersen’s
Cycle and was replaced by (u)dhen, showing the process described by Otto
Jespersen by which negation tends to increase and decrease in complexity over
time in regular ways. According to the author, Greek shows evidence for the
stages seen in Jespersen’s Cycle with additional intermediate stages in
particular during the Late Medieval stage. The Greek Neg2 preserved its
behavior as an element dependent on nonveridicality and its uninterpretable
NonVeridicality feature [uNonVer]. This negator has four diachronically
preserved functions analyzed in this chapter: (i) in negative directives or
volitionals, (ii) as an optional question particle, (iii) in the scope of
verbs of fearing and (iv) as lexical negation. This chapter nicely presents a
connection between the Greek negators and Jespersen’s Cycle and proposes a
modification of the latter and setting Greek as a Jespersen’s Cycle language.
EVALUATION
In the preface, Chatzopoulou comments that an outcome of this work that is
based on Chatzopoulou (2012) was “to witness the attempts in diverse fields,
starting with the classical scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and the generative theories, typologists, and field linguistics” to
account for the same phenomenon in language. Indeed this work, contextualized
in the theory of (non)veridicality previously proposed for Greek (Giannakidou
1998 and subsequent work), is exactly as described, a detailed and thorough
investigation presented in a clear way to the reader, who wishes to learn from
scratch, or refresh or enrich his knowledge of regular patterns concerning
negation and environments met in the history of Greek. For this, the book
would make a valuable companion to seminars on negation or historical
linguistics courses. Courses on Greek syntax and semantics could also benefit
from the discussion provided in Chapter 2, which provides the theoretical
background relevant to the distribution of the negators at a synchronic
linguistic stage. As for some of the other points mentioned in the preface,
this work could benefit from research in psycholinguistics to enrich the
synchronic description of the polarity phenomenon in Greek in Chapter 2 (see
Chatzikonstantinou 2012, for example).
Chatzopoulou’s work also makes a great reference guide for aspects of Greek
language diachrony beyond negation, such as the information given to the
reader on the broadening of /hina/ with a presentation of a variety of
environments including modal predicates, directive predicates, unembedded
directives, yes/no questions, fragment answers and nominalizations. In
addition, the discussion on change in word order, a well-known fact about the
diachrony of Greek, shows examples from complex sentences that also involve
embedded clauses, negation and different positions of the verb allowing the
interested reader to build a mental representation of the syntax of Greek of
the relevant period. All of the data provided, complementary to the main
argument and proposal of this work can be used for work on different phenomena
by scholars working on Greek particularly but also other theoretical
contributions on modality and selectional requirements of predicates. The
observations recorded here open up future research questions that examine the
diachrony of these phenomena related to synchronic syntactic and semantic
theories.
Overall, the book is clear and well-organized. It presents a coherent view of
the (non)veridicality theory diachronically through the study of Greek
negation. The book would make a great addition to the libraries of
semanticists, historical linguists and anyone else requiring a book providing
synchronic and diachronic evidence and a novel perspective on the
much-discussed phenomenon of negation.
REFERENCES
Chatzopoulou, Katerina. 2012. Negation and Nonveridicality in the history of
Greek. PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Chatzikonstantinou, Anastasios. 2012. Semantic and Prosodic Processing of the
negative polarity items in Greek. PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical
Dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2006. Only, Emotive Factives, and the Dulan Nature of
Polarity Dependency. Language, 82(3), 575-603.
Markopoulos, Theodore. 2009. The Future in Greek. From Ancient to Medieval.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Natalia Pavlou is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of English
Studies at the University of Cyprus and her research focuses on a) syntax and
morphology of Greek, b) language acquisition and variation in bilectal and
heritage environments. She earned her PhD from the Department of Linguistics
at the University of Chicago in 2018.
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