Double marking of the past in Early Modern Greek

Abstract

This paper examines double marking of the past feature in verbal formations with preverbs in Early Modern Greek (16th c.). This period is characterized by great linguistic variation reflected in every type of text. We compiled a dataset of 268 formations from a corpus which includes 250 excerpts of prose texts (155,717 words in total). Our analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative criteria. We argue that double marking of the past feature in this period can take two forms, that is, it can be realized as two distinct prefixes (explicit multiple exponence), or it can be realized by one verbal augment (prefix) and as part of the information carried by the verbal allomorph (implicit multiple exponence). The double exponence of this inflectional feature hints at a process of externalization of inflection, while pleonastic exponence of the past feature related to stem allomorphy can be explained as a tendency for explicit exponents of inflectional features.