Voice in Istanbul Greek

Abstract

The present thesis aims at analyzing the language spoken by one of the oldest communities in Istanbul: the Istanbul Greeks (Constantinopolites or the “Rums”). As a morphosyntactic analysis of Istanbul Greek, this research is the first of its kind, and is centered upon data collected from Istanbul Greeks regarding language use. Of course, this thesis focuses on a special aspect of morphosyntax, which is Voice related constructions in Istanbul Greek, such as anticausatives and passives. After an introductory chapter on the sociolinguistics of the Istanbul Greek community, the thesis proceeds with a theoretical discussion of Voice related constructions in Standard Greek, and ends with the analysis of Istanbul Greek data in terms of anticausative and passive constructions. This thesis centers upon language contact between Istanbul Greek and Turkish as a possible reason for the dialectal differences between Istanbul Greek and Standard Greek.