Interpretation of the Subjunctive in Modern Greek as a Foreign Language: A Case Study of Serbian Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/analiff.2019.31.2.21Keywords:
subjunctive mood, aspect, aspectuality, Greek as a foreign languageAbstract
The paper explores the semantic aspect of modality and, in particular, perfectivity in the usage of Modern Greek subjunctive by Serbian students of Modern Greek Studies, at the University of Belgrade. The subjunctive mood is not always comprehensible; hence, learners of Greek as a second/foreign language make a concerted effort to become aware of it. According to Comrie (1967:16): ‘‘perfectivity indicates the view of a situation as a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases’’. On the other hand, the imperfective is expressed by an ongoing or repeated action. Whether the subjunctive expresses the perfective or the imperfective is a question that a group of Serbian students were asked to figure out. More specifically, 78 native speakers of Serbian and L2 learners of Greek were tested on the comprehension of a number of subjunctives by means of a translation task. Based on error analysis, the results indicated that aspectual distinction is a matter of negative transfer from the mother tongue, but this is not always the case.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in the journal Anali filološkog fakulteta by the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (Faculty of Philology, Studentski trg 3, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia). Author’s name will be evident in the printed article in the journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
