Syntactic change

Abstract

[ES] En este trabajo se define el cambio sintáctico, se analizan los factores que lo causan o facilitan y se estudian sus tipos principales en griego antiguo.

[EN] Syntactic change is a type of natural language variation that refers to changes in the grammar of a language. This change can be caused or facilitated both by Socio-cultural factors and by language-internal factors. A particular feature of Ancient Greek is the continuity in the field of Grammar throughout the centuries, comparing with most European languages. Two types of syntactic change are analyzed: (1) the grammaticalization as a process that transforms independent linguistic units into grammatical ones or less grammatical into more grammatical ones (allá, án, plḗn, as); and (2) the changes that involve the structure of the whole clause (the shift from free word order to verb-initial word order and the replacement of the infinitive by a subordinate clause ‘to’ + verb).