DOI: 10.30842/alp2306573716205
Από is one of the main Greek prepositions which can be combined with several cases: the genitive since antiquity and the accusative as of the 11th–12th centuries and onwards. In the 20th century the accusative became the main and the most frequent case after από. In Modern Greek, however, από can be also found with the nominative case. This contribution compares different combinations of από with the nominative against those with the accusative. The majority of our examples and all the quantitative data come from the Corpus of Modern Greek (http://web-corpora.net/GreekCorpus/search/?interface_language=en) with approximately 35.7 million tokens; some problematic cases have been checked with 15 native speakers of Modern Greek.
Our analysis reveals some semantic and formal differences between “από + nominative” and “από + any other case (primarily accusative)” constructions. Thus, από may be followed by the nominative without an article or with the indefinite article, while NPs with the accusative can also take the definite article, with combinations with the accusative more frequent than those with the nominative. Sometimes (though quite rarely), both can have the same meaning where από with the accusative may have more bookish colouring.
Our analysis of the syntactic peculiarities of “από + nominative” made it possible to regard the usage of nominative as a kind of agreement with the subject. It also shows that in certain combinations with the nominative the preposition από can serve as a distinctive marker of different syntactic ranks in phrases such as από γιος έγινε πατέρας ‘[he] became the father of a son’ to avoid any potential ambiguity.
Unfortunately, this paper has left some problems un solved; for example, the origin of the combination “από + nominative” remains unclear. It is undoubtedly a result of the reanalysis of one or even several ellyptical constructions. In the future, it would be interesting to look for parallels in other Balkan languages in a comparative study.
Our analysis reveals some semantic and formal differences between “από + nominative” and “από + any other case (primarily accusative)” constructions. Thus, από may be followed by the nominative without an article or with the indefinite article, while NPs with the accusative can also take the definite article, with combinations with the accusative more frequent than those with the nominative. Sometimes (though quite rarely), both can have the same meaning where από with the accusative may have more bookish colouring.
Our analysis of the syntactic peculiarities of “από + nominative” made it possible to regard the usage of nominative as a kind of agreement with the subject. It also shows that in certain combinations with the nominative the preposition από can serve as a distinctive marker of different syntactic ranks in phrases such as από γιος έγινε πατέρας ‘[he] became the father of a son’ to avoid any potential ambiguity.
Unfortunately, this paper has left some problems un solved; for example, the origin of the combination “από + nominative” remains unclear. It is undoubtedly a result of the reanalysis of one or even several ellyptical constructions. In the future, it would be interesting to look for parallels in other Balkan languages in a comparative study.
Authors:
Eloeva Fatima A.
Institute for Linguistic Studies, RAS (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Ф. А. Елоева
Kisilier Maxim L.
St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg, Russia)
М. Л. Кисилиер
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XVI (2020) 2
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