The grammar of Modern Greek, as spoken in present-day Greece and Cyprus, is essentially that of Demotic Greek, but it has also assimilated certain elements of Katharevousa, the archaic, learned variety of Greek imitating Classical Greek forms, which used to be the official language of Greece through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, Longman, New York, 1997, , p. 364 Babiniotis, G. (5 December 1999). "Τι γλώσσα μιλάμε". Τα Νέα. Retrieved 6 June 2017. Modern Greek grammar has preserved many features of Ancient Greek, but has also undergone changes in a similar direction as many other modern Indo-European languages, from more synthetic to more analytic structures.
General characteristics Syntax The predominant word order in Greek is SVO (subject–verb–object), but word order is quite freely variable, with VSO and other orders as frequent alternatives. Within the noun phrase, adjectives commonly precede the noun (for example, , , 'the big house'). Adjectives may also follow the noun when marked for emphasis, as in , 'a new book', instead of the usual order . When, however, the adjective describes an intrinsic characteristic, it often follows the noun. For example, the order 'goat milk', with the neuter form of the adjective 'referring or belonging to goats' following the noun, is about equally common as the order . Possessors generally follow the noun (for example, , , 'my house'; 'Nick's house'). If both an adjective and a possessive occur, the possessive may be placed before the noun: ⇔ , 'my big house'.(in French) Méthode de grec moderne, Henri Tonnet, L'Asiathèque Some other alternative constructions involving the opposite order of constituents are possible as a marked option (e.g. 'the big house' – not the small house; 'Nick's house' – not Maria's house)
Greek is a pro-drop language, and subjects are typically not overtly expressed whenever they are inferable from context. While the word order of the major elements within the clause is fairly free, certain grammatical elements attach to the verb as clitics and form a rigidly ordered group together with it; this applies particularly to unstressed object pronouns, negation particles, the tense particle , and the subjunctive particle . Likewise, possessive pronouns are enclitic to the nouns they modify.
Morphology Greek is a largely synthetic (inflectional) language. Although the complexity of the inflectional system has been somewhat reduced in comparison to Ancient Greek, there is also a considerable degree of continuity in the morphological system, and Greek still has a somewhat archaic character compared with other Indo-European languages of Europe.Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 1983, Nouns, adjectives and verbs are each divided into several inflectional classes (declension classes and conjugation classes), which have different sets of endings. In the nominals, the ancient inflectional system is well preserved, with the exception of the loss of one case, the dative, and the restructuring of several of the inflectional classes. In the verbal system, the loss of synthetic inflectional categories is somewhat greater, and several new analytic (periphrastic) constructions have evolved instead.
Characteristics of the Balkan language area Modern Greek shares several syntactic characteristics with its geographical neighbours, with which it forms the so-called Balkan language area (Sprachbund). Among these characteristics are: The lack of an infinitive. In Greek, verbal complementation in contexts where English would use an infinitive is typically formed with the help of finite (subjunctive) verb forms (e.g. , , literally 'I-want that I-go', i.e. 'I want to go'). The merger of the dative and the genitive case. In Greek, indirect objects are expressed partly through genitive forms of nouns or pronouns, and partly through a periphrasis consisting of the preposition (, 'to') and the accusative. The use of a future construction derived from the verb 'want' ( → ). A tendency to use pre-verbal clitic object pronouns redundantly (clitic doubling), doubling an object that is also expressed elsewhere in the clause: for example, (, 'I saw it, the car", literally 'It I-saw the car'). On the other hand, one prominent feature of the Balkan language area that Greek does not share is the use of a postposed definite article. The Greek article (like the Ancient Greek one) stands before the noun.
Accent Modern Greek has a stress accent, similar to English. The accent is notated with a stroke (΄) over the accented vowel and is called (oxeia, "acute") or (tonos, "accent") in Greek. The former term is taken from one of the accents used in polytonic orthography which officially became obsolete in 1982.
As in Ancient Greek, in Modern Greek the accent cannot be placed before the antepenultimate syllable. As a result, in many words that have the accent on their antepenultimate in their base form, the stress shifts to the next syllable in inflection forms with longer affixes. For example, (, "lesson") but and etc. In some words, the accent moves forward even without the addition of a syllable. For example, (, "human") but , and . This accentuation is inherited from Ancient Greek, where long vowels and diphthongs occupied two morae, having the same effect as the addition of a syllable. Portal for the Greek Language: νόμος της τρισυλλαβίας. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
Accent shifts can also be triggered by the addition of enclitic elements after a word. Enclitics are phonologically weak personal pronouns that form a single phonological unit together with the word they are attached to. The three-syllable rule then applies to the unit as a whole. When the previous word is accented on the antepenultimate syllable, the enclitic causes the ultimate syllable to be accented too. For example, (, "teacher") but (, "my teacher") and (, "wear ") but (, "wear it"). If two enclitic elements are added to a word, the extra accent appears on the first enclitic. For example, (, "bring it to me").
As a rule, monosyllabic words do not carry an orthographic accent, except for a few words where the accent marker is used to orthographically distinguish them from an otherwise homonymous item (e.g. , "or", distinguished from the feminine article ). Moreover, weak personal pronouns are accented in cases where they may be mistaken for enclitics. For example, (, "the dog barked at me") instead of (, "my dog barked").Karanikolas, A. et al., Νεοελληνική Γραμματική: Αναπροσαρμογή της μικρής νεοελληνικής γραμματικής του Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη, Οργανισμός Εκδόσεως Διδακτικών Βιβλίων, Athens, 2004, pp. 22–26
Verbs
Aspects and moods
Greek verb morphology is structured around a basic 2-by-2 contrast of two aspects:
imperfective perfective
and two tenses:
past non-past (or present)
The aspects are expressed by distinct verb stems, while the tenses are marked mainly by different sets of endings. Of the four possible combinations, only three can be used in indicative function: the present (i.e. imperfective non-past), the imperfect (i.e. imperfective past) and the aorist (i.e. perfective past). All four combinations can be used in subjunctive function, where they are typically preceded by the particle or by one of a set of subordinating conjunctions. There are also two imperatives, one for each aspect.
Periphrastic constructions
In addition to these basic forms, Greek also has several periphrastic verb constructions.
θα
All the basic forms can be combined with the future particle (historically a contraction of , 'want to').
Future tense
combined with the imperfective present form creates the imperfective future combined with the perfective present form creates the perfective future
θα combined with past forms
combined with the imperfective past form is used to form the conditional mood combined with the perfective past form is used to form the inferential mood
έχω
There is also a perfect, which is expressed with an inflected form of the auxiliary verb ('have'). It occurs as a past perfect (pluperfect), present perfect, future perfect, and conditional perfect, formed by conjugating έχω in the imperfect, present, future and conditional forms respectively, followed by the aparemphato as described below.
Non-finite forms
Modern Greek verbs additionally have three non-finite forms.
There is a form traditionally called "απαρέμφατο" (i.e. 'infinitive', literally the 'invariant form'), which is historically derived from the perfective (aorist) infinitive, but has today lost all syntactical functions typically associated with that category. It is used only to form the periphrastic perfect and pluperfect, and is always formally identical to the 3rd person singular of the perfective non-past.
There is also a passive participle, typically ending in -menos (-meni, -meno), which is inflected as a regular adjective. Its use is either as a canonical adjective, or as a part of a second, alternative perfect periphrasis with transitive verbs.
Finally, there is another invariant form, formed from the present tense and typically ending in -ontas, which is variably called either a participle or a gerund by modern authors. It is historically derived from an old present participle, and its sole use today is to form non-finite adjunct adverbial clauses of time or manner, roughly corresponding to an -ing participle in English.
Regular perfect periphrasis, with aparemphato ("invariant form"), for example: (, 'I have written the cheque') Alternative perfect periphrasis, with passive participle, for example: (, 'I have written the cheque') Adverbial clause with present participle/gerund form, for example: (, 'he ran along the street singing')
The tables below exemplify the range of forms with those of one large inflectional class of verbs, the first conjugation.
First conjugation
Aspect Stem Non-past Past Imperative Imperfective Present( + ) Imperfect( + )[continuous] ('I write') ('I was writing') ('write!') Perfective Present perfective( only) Aorist( + )[once] ('that I write') ('I wrote') ('write!') Perfect Present ( + )Past ( + ) ('I have written') ('I had written')
With subordinating particle "να" With future particle "θα" Non-past Past Non-past Past Imperfective '(that) he write', 'to be writing' '(that) he was writing, 'to have been writing' 'he will be writing' 'he would write' Perfective '(that) he write', 'to write' '(that) he wrote', 'to have written' 'he will write' 'he probably wrote' Perfect '(that) he have written', 'to have written' '(that) he had written', 'to have had written' 'he will have written' 'he would have written'
Second conjugation Below are the corresponding forms of two subtypes of another class, the second conjugation. Only the basic forms are shown here; the periphrastic combinations are formed as shown above. While the person-number endings are quite regular across all verbs within each of these classes, the formation of the two basic stems for each verb displays a lot of irregularity and can follow any of a large number of idiosyncratic patterns.
verbs in -(ά)ω/ώ( 'love') verbs in -ώ ( ← -εω)( 'lead') Present Imperfect Present Imperfect , , , , , , , , , Pres. perfective (subj.) Aorist Pres. perfective (subj) Aorist
Augment