Suffixation and the expression of time and space in modern Greek

Abstract

This paper draws a comparison, through semasiological and onomasiological methods, of three Modern Greek (MG) suffixes -in(os), -iatik(os) and -isi(os), which construct denominal adjectives of time and/or space. Following D. Corbin’s model (1987; 1991 and forthcoming) of Construction Morphology, an in depth analysis of these suffixes’ semantics will be presented. The results suggest that, in order to construct a denominal adjective following the relational Lexeme Construction Rule (LCRREL), a categorical, semantic and pragmatic compatibility are necessary between the base-noun and the suffix, as well as between the suffixed adjective and the noun of the noun phrase (NP); there are no synonyms even if the same noun is used as a base-noun. The three suffixes differ with respect to their semantic and pragmatic features; as a consequence, they are used in different genres. The data has been drawn from many dictionaries and especially from the Reverse Dictionary of Modern Greek (Anastassiadis-Symeonidis, 2002) as well as the Corpus of Greek Texts (Goutsos 2003).