Greek language

==Characteristics==
{{See also|Ancient Greek grammar|Koine Greek grammar|Modern Greek grammar}}

The [[phonology]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[syntax]], and [[vocabulary]] of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it.

===Phonology===
{{Main article|Modern Greek phonology|Koine Greek phonology|Ancient Greek phonology}}
[[File:Seferisrede.ogg|thumb|Spoken [[Modern Greek]]]]
Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only [[oral vowels]] and a fairly stable set of consonantal [[Phonemic contrast|contrasts]]. The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see [[Koine Greek phonology]] for details):
* replacement of the [[pitch accent]] with a [[stress (linguistics)|stress accent]].
* simplification of the system of [[vowel]]s and [[diphthong]]s: loss of vowel length distinction, monophthongisation of most diphthongs and several steps in a [[chain shift]] of vowels towards {{IPA|/i/}} ([[iotacism]]).
* development of the [[voicelessness|voiceless]] [[aspirated consonant|aspirated]] [[stop consonant|plosives]] {{IPA|/pʰ/}} and {{IPA|/tʰ/}} to the voiceless [[fricative consonant|fricatives]] {{IPA|/f/}} and {{IPA|/θ/}}, respectively; the similar development of {{IPA|/kʰ/}} to {{IPA|/x/}} may have taken place later (the phonological changes are not reflected in the orthography, and both earlier and later phonemes are written with [[Phi (letter)|φ]], [[Theta|θ]], and [[Chi (letter)|χ]]).
* development of the [[voice (phonetics)|voiced]] plosives {{IPA|/b/}}, {{IPA|/d/}}, and {{IPA|/ɡ/}} to their voiced fricative counterparts {{IPA|/β/}} (later {{IPA|/v/}}), {{IPA|/ð/}}, and {{IPA|/ɣ/}}.

===Morphology===
In all its stages, the [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] of Greek shows an extensive set of [[Productive (linguistics)|productive]] [[derivational affix]]es, a limited but productive system of [[Compound (linguistics)|compounding]]<ref>{{harvnb|Ralli|2001|pp=164–203}}.</ref> and a rich [[inflection]]al system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the [[Nominal (linguistics)|nominal]] and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the [[dative case]] (its functions being largely taken over by the [[Genitive case|genitive]]). The verbal system has lost the [[infinitive]], the [[Synthetic (linguistics)|synthetically]]-formed future, and [[perfect tense]]s and the [[optative mood]]. Many have been replaced by [[periphrastic]] ([[Analytic language|analytical]]) forms.

====Nouns and adjectives====
Pronouns show distinctions in [[grammatical person|person]] (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), [[grammatical number|number]] (singular, [[Dual (grammatical number)|dual]], and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and [[grammatical gender|gender]] (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and [[Declension (linguistics)|decline]] for [[grammatical case|case]] (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language).{{NoteTag|The four cases that are found in all stages of Greek are the nominative, genitive, accusative, and vocative. The dative/locative of Ancient Greek disappeared in the late Hellenistic period, and the instrumental case of Mycenaean Greek disappeared in the Archaic period.}} Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both [[Attributive adjective|attributive]] and [[Predicative adjective|predicative]] adjectives [[Agreement (linguistics)|agree]] with the noun.

====Verbs====
The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have [[synthetic language|synthetic]] inflectional forms for:

{| class="wikitable"
!
! Ancient Greek
! Modern Greek
|-
! Person
| first, second and third || also [[T–V distinction|second person formal]]
|-
! Number
| singular, [[dual (grammatical number)|dual]] and plural || singular and plural
|-
! [[Grammatical tense|tense]]
| [[Present tense|present]], [[past tense|past]] and [[future tense|future]]
| past and non-past (future is expressed by a [[Periphrasis|periphrastic construction]])
|-
! [[Grammatical aspect|aspect]]
| [[Imperfective aspect|imperfective]], [[perfective aspect|perfective]] (traditionally called ''[[aorist]]'') and [[perfect (grammar)|perfect]] (sometimes also called ''perfective''; see [[Perfective aspect#Perfective vs. perfect|note about terminology]])
| imperfective and perfective/aorist (perfect is expressed by a periphrastic construction)
|-
! [[Grammatical mood|mood]]
| [[realis mood|indicative]], [[subjunctive mood|subjunctive]], [[imperative mood|imperative]] and [[optative mood|optative]]
| indicative, subjunctive,{{NoteTag|There is no particular morphological form that can be identified as 'subjunctive' in the modern language, but the term is sometimes encountered in descriptions even if the most complete modern grammar (Holton et al. 1997) does not use it and calls certain traditionally-'subjunctive' forms 'dependent'. Most Greek linguists advocate abandoning the traditional terminology (Anna Roussou and Tasos Tsangalidis 2009, in ''Meletes gia tin Elliniki Glossa'', Thessaloniki, Anastasia Giannakidou 2009 "Temporal semantics and polarity: The dependency of the subjunctive revisited", Lingua); see [[Modern Greek grammar#The verb|Modern Greek grammar]] for explanation.}} and imperative (other modal functions are expressed by periphrastic constructions)
|-
! Voice
| [[active voice|active]], [[Mediopassive voice|medio-passive]], and [[passive voice|passive]]
| [[Active voice|active]] and [[mediopassive voice|medio-passive]]
|}

===Syntax===
Many aspects of the [[syntax]] of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the [[Modern Greek grammar|modern form of the language]]. Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO.

===Vocabulary===
Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of [[Pre-Greek substrate|borrowings]] from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks,<ref>{{harvnb|Beekes|2009}}.</ref> some documented in [[Linear B|Mycenaean texts]]; they include a large number of Greek [[toponym]]s. The form and meaning of many words have changed. [[Loanword]]s (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, [[Venetian language#History|Venetian]], and [[Turkish language|Turkish]]. During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from [[Albanian language|Albanian]], [[South Slavic languages|South Slavic]] ([[Macedonian language|Macedonian]]/[[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]]) and [[Eastern Romance languages]] ([[Aromanian language|Aromanian]] and [[Megleno-Romanian language|Megleno-Romanian]]).