Syntax overview at units’ level: Syntagma, sentence, phrase, and some correlations with the order of Greek-Albanian constituents in Th.Mitko’s Phrase Book (1887-1888)

Elvis Bramo

doi:10.26417/ejms.v6i2.p102-113

Abstract

: In the article “Syntax overview at units’ level: Syntagma, sentence, phrase, and some correlations with the order of their Greek-Albanian constituents in the tri-lingual Talking Dictionary of Th. Mitko”, the author, pedagogue of the Modern Greek Language in the University of Tirana, Elvis Bramo, brings the level of the language as the main topic of this research, that is the syntactical level, starting from the syntagma unit (as a building unit), different types of sentences, some phrases with predicative components, and some bilingual segments: Albanian-Greek, to identify several peculiarities of word order. This comparative study between the two languages ( the Talking Dictionary has been compiled in three languages) aims at achieving some partial conclusions about the construction of the syntagma, their types as far as syntax connecting ways are concerned, and the valences that merge them into classes of words; It aims to identify the types of sentences with the grammatical elements of the question, with question words, with the denial grammatical tools, as well as the characteristics of the verbs as the heart of the syntatical organization in the communicated unit-phrase. Regarding the phrase (period), Bramo has pointed out the relationship of the phrasal components merging, their functioning together with their thematic and rematic role, on the basis of the Prague School. The language research from this viewpoint of Th.Mitko’s work, one of the most famous Albanian folklorists, has also brought in a comparable plan some models of syntactical phrasal and compound structures, to show that although the Greek and the Albanian languages are natural languages with a free word order (SVO), they do have parametric changes regarding the consituent parts of the sentence, particularly in the connoted constructions.

Highlights

Thimi Mitko has without doubt been among the first elaborators of the Albanian language, not beacuse he joined the early collectors of folk oral creativity, otherwise known as a precious national treasory of the mother tongue, but above all, for being part of the heritage with his authentic lexicographic works, such as the Tri-lingual Talking Dictionary, prepared and published two years ago
Suffice to mention here the high appreciation of the great renaissance man, Jeronim de Rada, who was among the first Arbëresh that got acquainted with his work, and published it in his newspaper, Fiamuri i Arbërit; (Arber’s flag); saying that the collector of "The albanian bee" had realized that un popolo non può uscire dalla barbaria se non coltivando la lingua a sè nativa...[3]
Even if we don’t have the text structures for the linguistic heritage of Mitko, we are able to describe the constructions in phrases with two or more predicate elements, and we can speak about their nature, as it is usually said about a language, in terms of this level which has become the topic of our writing

Summary

European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

Syntax overview at units’ level: Syntagma, sentence, phrase, and some correlations with the order of Greek-Albanian constituents in Th.Mitko’s Phrase Book (1887-1888).

Introduction

Phrase construcion