Chapter 7. Little words, small moves

Abstract

This paper explores clitic placement in two different varieties of Greek, Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek, and it is argued that, under heavy influence from the standard variety, the Cypriot variety is undergoing change as regards a core property of its syntax, namely the placement of pronominal object clitics, since alongside structures where object clitics appear in second position in the clause, they also tend to appear in the immediately preverbal position, as in Standard Greek, the roofing standard for the Cypriot koine. An overview of existing studies is provided, after which the argument is made for competing grammars; the availability in the Cypriot koine of the Standard Greek as well as the Cypriot clitic placement strategy is accounted for on the basis of successful second dialect acquisition.