Analyzing the past augment in Modern Greek: A crossdialectical account

This paper examines the morphological status of the past augment e- in Modern Greek. Under the framework of Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993; Embick & Noyer 2007; Arregi & Nevins 2012), I explore the morphotactic constraints and the operations that apply for its realization. I claim that the manifestation of the augment e- as a T node left-adjacent to the verb stem in Standard Modern Greek is subject to the operation of Doubling triggered by the T-Initiality morphotactic constraint. I further support my analysis of the past augment e- providing data from Cypriot Greek arguing that the Noninitiality morphotactic constraint and the Metathesis postsyntactic operation are additionally required for the past verbal morphology. The Doubling analysis explains the past augment e- as a morpheme displacement phenomenon in verbal morphology in Modern Greek cross-dialectically, unifying any dialectical variations.

Keywords:

Past , augment , Doubling , Metathesis , morphotactic constraints.