ON THE ISSUE OF THE TENDENCY TOWARDS ANALYTISM IN THE DEGREES OF COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES IN MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE (ON MATERIAL FROM THE ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ NEWSPAPER 2013)

VOL. 51, BOOK 1, PART B, 2013, pp. 304 – 317 Full text (Bg)

Author: Tanya Ivanova

Affiliation: Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv

Abstract

The tendency towards analytism in the development of the noun system is inherent in many Indo-European languages. But the transition from synthetism to analytism in the Balkan languages is remarkable in that it combines into a unitary system a number of interdependent phenomena that create the unique appearance of the Balkan type of analytism. Alongside the collapse of the declension and the morpho-syntactic changes as a result of this, the trend to analytism in the Balkan languages is apparent in the replacement of synthetic degrees of comparison with analytical ones. This kind of transition from synthetism to analytism has been accomplished in all Balkan languages, including Greek which is not a central Balkan language.

Key words: synthetism, analytical construction, superlative, degrees of comparison, synthetic degrees of comparison, analytical degrees of comparison, descriptive degrees of comparison