Novel forms for the expression of aspect in heritage Greek across majority languages

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 20; no. 5; p. e0319154
• Main Authors: Rizou, Vasiliki, Papadopoulou, Despina, Özsoy, Onur, Alexiadou, Artemis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15.05.2025; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Bilingualism; Biology and Life Sciences; Canonical forms; Female; Germany; Grammar, Comparative and general; Grammars; Greece; Greek language; Heritage language; Humans; Hypotheses; Language; Linguistics; Male; Morphology; Native language; People and places; Phi features; Phonetics; Phonology; Semantics; Social Sciences; Tense; United States; Greece; United States; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319154

This paper investigates, on the one hand, which verbal features are re-organized in heritage grammars and, on the other hand, the production of novel non-canonical forms for the expression of verbal aspect by Greek heritage speakers in Germany and the US compared to monolingually-raised speakers of Modern Greek (henceforth Greek). As aspect cannot be seen in isolation from other morphological features such as voice, tense, and phi-features, the analysis of the novel forms is conducted under the prism of the verbal complex. The results indicate that φ-features and aspect seem to be the most re-organized elements encoded in Greek verbs and, furthermore, that heritage speaker groups differ significantly from monolingually-raised controls in terms of the production of novel morphological forms, demonstrating that heritage speakers, especially those in the US, face difficulties with the morpho-phonological adjustments needed to be built in verbal forms.