Constantinoupolitan dialect

Constantinoupoli Greek dialect
Κωνσταντινουπολίτικη διάλεκτος κωνσταντινουπολίτικα πολίτικα
Native to	Romaia
Region	Apollonia, Aedonia, Klaudia
Native speakers	c. 4,000,000 (2019)
Language family	Indo-European Greek Koine Greek Romaian Greek Central Romaian Greek Constantinoupoli Greek dialect
Writing system	Greek alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

The Constantinoupoli Greek dialect (Κωνσταντινουπολίτικη διάλεκτος or Πολίτικη διάλεκτος) is a Romaian Greek dialect is one of the central Romaian dialects spoken in the Metropoly of Constantinoupoli, especially in Constantinoupoli.

Classification

Constantinoupoli dialect is derived from Medieval Greek. It has traditionally been placed in the central Romaian group of dialects, along with the dialects of the Aidonia and Klaudia (with which it shares several phonological phenomena).

Though Constantinoupoli dialect tends to be regarded as a dialect by its speakers, it is unintelligible to speakers of Standard Modern Greek without adequate prior exposure. Greek-speaking Constantinoupolitans are diglossic in the vernacular Romaian Greek and Standard Modern Greek.

Phonology

Consonants

Constantinoupolitan Greek has geminate and palato-alveolar consonants, which Standard Modern Greek lacks. The table below depicts the consonantal inventory of the dialect.

Consonant phonemes

		Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar
		short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Nasal		m	mː	n	nː
Stop		p	pʰː	t	tʰː		t͡s	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃʰː	c	cʰː	k	kʰː
Fricative	voiceless	f	fː	θ	θː	s	sː	ʃ	ʃː			x	xː
	voiced	v		ð		z		ʒ		ʝ		ɣ
Lateral						l	lː
Rhotic						ɾ	r

Stops /p t c k/ and affricate /t͡ʃ/ are unaspirated and may be pronounced weakly voiced in fast speech. /pʰː tʰː cʰː kʰː/ are always heavily aspirated and they are never preceded by nasals, with the exception of some loans, e.g. /ʃamˈpʰːu/ "shampoo". /t͡ʃ/ and /t͡ʃʰː/ are laminal post-alveolars. /t͡s/ is pronounced similarly to /t͡ʃʰː/, in terms of closure duration and aspiration.

Voiced fricatives /v ð ɣ/ are often pronounced as approximants and they are regularly elided when intervocalic. /ʝ/ is similarly often realised as an approximant [j] in weak positions.

The palatal lateral approximant [ʎ] is most often realised as a singleton or geminate lateral [ʎ(ː)] or a singleton or geminate fricative [ʝ(ː)], and sometimes as a glide [j] (yeísmo). The circumstances under which all the different variants surface are not very well understood, but [ʝ(ː)] appear to be favoured in stressed syllables and word-finally, and before /a e/.

The palatal nasal [ɲ] is produced somewhat longer than other singleton nasals, though not as long as geminates. /z/ is similarly "rather long".

The alveolar trill /r/ is the geminate counterpart of the tap /ɾ/.

Palatalisation and glide hardening

In analyses that posit a phonemic (but not phonetic) glide /j/, palatals and postalveolars arise from CJV (consonant–glide–vowel) clusters, namely:

• /mjV/ → [mɲV]
• /njV/ → [ɲːV]
• /ljV/ → [ʎːV] or [ʝːV]
• /kjV/ → [t͡ʃV] or [cV]
• /xjV/ → [ʃV] or [çV]
• /ɣjV/ → [ʝV]
• /zjV/ → [ʒːV]
• /t͡sjV/ → [t͡ʃʰːV]

The glide is not assimilated, but hardens to an obstruent [c] after /p t f v θ ð/ and to [k] after /ɾ/. At any rate, velar stops and fricatives are in complementary distribution with palatals and postalveolars before front vowels /e i/; that is to say, broadly, /k kʰː/ are palatalised to either [c cʰː] or [t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰː]; /x xː/ to [[[:Template:IPAplink]] çː] or [ʃ ʃː]; and /ɣ/ to [ʝ].

Geminates

Romaian Greek is notable among the Greek varities for its extensive geminated consonants. In Romaian and in Constantinoupolitan dialects, word-internal geminates are usually written with two consonants, and geminates are distinctive. Tonic syllables are bimoraic and are therefore composed of either a long vowel in an open syllable or a short vowel in a closed syllable. Double or long consonants occur not only within words but also at word boundaries, and they are then pronounced but not necessarily written.

Assimilatory processes

Word-final /n/ assimilates with succeeding consonants—other than stops and affricates—at word boundaries producing post-lexical geminates. Consequently, geminate voiced fricatives, though generally not phonemic, do occur as allophones. Below are some examples of geminates to arise from sandhi.

• /ton ˈluka/ → [to‿ˈlˑuka] τον Λούκα "Lucas" (acc.)
• /en ˈða/ → [e‿ˈðːa] εν δα "[s/he] is here"
• /pu tin ˈɾiza/ → [pu ti‿ˈriza] που την ρίζα "from the root"

In contrast, singleton stops and affricates do not undergo gemination, but become fully voiced when preceded by a nasal, with the nasal becoming homorganic. This process is not restricted to terminal nasals; singleton stops and affricates always become voiced following a nasal.

• /kaˈpnizumen ˈpuɾa/ → [kaˈpnizumem‿ˈbuɾa] καπνίζουμεν πούρα "[we] smoke cigars"
• /an ˈt͡ʃe/ → [an‿ˈd͡ʒe] αν τζ̌αι "even though"
• /tin ciɾi.aˈcin/ → [tiɲ‿ɟirĭ.aˈcin] την Κυριακήν "on Sunday"

Word-final /n/ is altogether elided before geminate stops and consonant clusters:

• /eˈpiasamen ˈfcoɾa/ → [eˈpcasame‿ˈfcoɾa] επιάσαμεν φκιόρα "[we] bought flowers"
• /ˈpa‿stin cʰːeˈlːe/ → [ˈpa‿sti‿cʰːeˈlːe] πα' στην κκελλέ "on the head"

Like with /n/, word-final /s/ assimilates to following [s] and [ʃ] producing geminates:

• /as ʃoˈnisi/ → [a‿ʃːoˈnisi] ας σ̌ονίσει "let it snow"

Vowels

Constantinoupoli dialect has a five-vowel system /Template:IPAplink, Template:IPAplink, Template:IPAplink, Template:IPAplink, Template:IPAplink/that is nearly identical to that of Standard Modern Greek.

Close vowels /i u/ following /t/ at the end of an utterance are regularly reduced (50% of all cases presented in study) to "fricated vowels" (40% of all cases, cf. Slavic yers), and are sometimes elided altogether (5% of all cases).

In glide-less analyses, /i/ may alternate with [k] or [c], e.g. [kluvi] "cage" → [klufca] "cages", or [kulːuɾi] "koulouri" → [kulːuɾ̥ka] "koulouria"; and, like in Standard Modern Greek, it is pronounced [ɲ] when found between /m/ and another vowel that belongs to the same syllable, e.g. [mɲa] "one" (f.).

Stress

Constantinoupoli dialect has "dynamic" stress. Both consonants and vowels are longer in stressed than in unstressed syllables, and the effect is stronger word-initially. There is only one stress per word, and it can fall on any of the last four syllables. Stress on the fourth syllable from the end of a word is rare and normally limited to certain verb forms. Because of this possibility, however, when words with antepenultimate stress are followed by an enclitic in Constantinoupoli dialect, no extra stress is added (unlike Standard Modern Greek, where the stress can only fall on one of the last three syllables), e.g. Constantinoupoli dialect το ποδήλατον μου [to poˈðilato‿mːu], Standard Modern Greek το ποδήλατό μου [to poˌðilaˈto‿mu] "my bicycle". Lastly, word-final /s/ becomes voiced when followed by a voiced consonant belonging to the same phrase, like in Standard Greek:

• /tis ˈmaltas/ → [tiz‿ˈmaltas] της Μάλτας "of Malta"
• /aˈɣonas ˈðromu/ → [aˈɣonaz‿ˈðromu] αγώνας δρόμου "race"

Morphology

The main morphological differences between Standard Modern Greek and Constantinoupoli dialect are the following:

• different interrogative word for "what" ίντα [ˈiⁿda] instead of τί [ti]
• different determiner τες [tes] instead of τις [tis] in the feminine accusative plural
• penultimate stress in the nominative plural of second declension nouns and the genitive plural of first declension feminine pronouns
• different plural morphemes, e.g. γιούδες [ˈʝuðes] instead of γιοι [ʝi] "sons" (sg. γιος)
• different demonstrative pronoun τουν [tun-] instead of τούτο [tuto]
• different third person plural suffix in present and past tense [-usin] and [-asin] instead of [-un] and [-an], respectively
• different second person plural morpheme in past tenses [-mete] instead of [-nate]
• syllabic augment [e] in past tenses
• different future particle εννά [eˈnːa] instead of θα [θa]
• different negation marker in non-indicative mood μεν [men] instead of μη(ν) [mi(n)]

Syntax

The main syntactic differences between Standard Modern Greek and Constantinoupoli dialect are the following:

• clitic comes after the verb instead of before it when the verb is emphasized and in the beginning of the sentence, e.g. είδες το [ˈiðes to] instead of το είδες [to ˈiðes] "you saw it"
• obligatory clefting in wh-questions induced by inda, e.g. [ˈiⁿda ᵐbu ˈiðes] "what is it that you saw?" instead of [ti ˈiðes] "what did you see?"
• optional clefting in other wh-questions
• focus clefting (no focus movement), e.g. [e ˈⁿdi ˈkseɲːa ᵐbu ˈiðes] "it is Xenia that you saw" for [tin ˈkseɲa ˈiðes] "you saw Xenia"
• indirect before direct object with post-verbal clitics, e.g. [ˈstil mu to] "send me it" instead of [ˈstile ˈto mu] "send it to me"