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Morphology and Meaning: Selected papers from the 15th International Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2012
Edited by Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Hans Christian Luschützky and Wolfgang U. Dressler
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 327] 2014
► pp. 331–344

The canonical function of the deponent 
verbs in modern Greek

 | University of Stuttgart
 | University of Stuttgart
The present paper discusses deponent verbs in Modern Greek. Deponents are claimed to be idiosyncratic, non-canonical verbs representing a mismatch between morphology and syntax/semantics, as they are intransitive verbs exhibiting a morphological form, non-active, without there being an active transitive counterpart. Since non-active morphology is standardly associated with de-transitivization, deponents are taken to be exceptional in this respect. We compiled a deponent-verb corpus of Modern Greek and examined its morphological, syntactic and semantic structure. The results of this study revealed that most deponent predicates are actually reflexives/reciprocals, anticausatives and passives; thus, they instantiate verbal alternations which typically surface with non-active morphological marking. For this reason, we conclude that the morphology of deponent verbs in Modern Greek has, contrary to their traditional definition, a canonical function.
Published online: 27 February 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.327.23zom
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