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Modern Greek grammar


The grammar of Standard Modern Greek, as spoken in present-day Greece and Cyprus, is basically that of Demotic Greek, but it has also assimilated certain elements of Katharevousa, the archaic, learned variety of Greek imitating Classical Greek forms, which used to be the official language of Greece through much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Modern Greek grammar has preserved many features of Ancient Greek, but has also undergone changes in a similar direction as many other modern Indo-European languages, from more synthetic to more analytic structures.

The predominant word order in Greek is SVO (subject–verb–object), but word order is quite freely variable, with VSO and other orders as frequent alternatives. Within the noun phrase, adjectives precede the noun (for example, το μεγάλο σπίτι, [to meˈɣalo ˈspiti], 'the big house'), while possessors follow it (for example, το σπίτι μου, [to ˈspiti mu], 'my house'; το σπίτι του Νίκου 'Nick's house'). Alternative constructions involving the opposite order of constituents are possible as a marked option (e.g. το σπίτι το μεγάλο 'the big house'; του Νίκου το σπίτι 'Nick's house')

Greek is a pro-drop language, i.e. subjects are typically not overtly expressed whenever they are inferable from context. Whereas the word order of the major elements within the clause is fairly free, certain grammatical elements attach to the verb as clitics and form a rigidly ordered group together with it. This applies particularly to unstressed object pronouns, negation particles, the tense particle θα [θa], and the subjunctive particle να [na]. Likewise, possessive pronouns are enclitic to the nouns they modify.


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