The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited

Dimitra Melissaropoulou | University of Patras and Open University of Cyprus

Charalambos Themistocleous | University of Cyprus

Stavroula Tsiplakou | Open University of Cyprus

Simeon Tsolakidis | University of Patras

This paper examines the emergence of innovative Present Perfect structures in the Cypriot Greek koiné through a quantitative study supplemented by naturalistically sampled data. The results of the study indicate that innovative Present Perfect structures are emergent in contemporary Cypriot Greek, at least among its younger, more educated speakers. Although such innovation on the morphosyntactic level may well be a result of language contact with Standard Greek, it does not entail perfect acquisition or transfer of the full range of associated semantic features of Standard Greek Present Perfect. Conversely, it seems that transfer of the exclusively resultative semantics of extant, non-innovative Cypriot Greek Present Perfect structures onto the innovative Present Perfect is not operative either.

Published online: 28 May 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.14.10mel

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