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Language Variation -European Perspectives IV

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Edited byPeter AuerJavier Caro ReinaGoz Kaufmann

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John Benjamins Publishing Company

The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited

Dimitra Melissaropoulou, Charalambos Themistocleous,Stavroula Tsiplakou & Simeon TsolakidisUniversity of Patras and Open University of Cyprus / University of Cyprus /Open University of Cyprus / University of Patras

This paper examines the emergence of innovative Present Perfect structuresin the Cypriot Greek koine through a quantitative study supplemented bynaturalistically sampled data. The results of the study indicate that innovativePresent Perfect structures are emergent in contemporary Cypriot Greek, atleast among its younger, more educated speakers. Although such innovationon the morphosyntactic level may well be a result of language contact withStandard Greek, it does not entail perfect acquisition or transfer of the fullrange of associated semantic features of Standard Greek Present Perfect.Conversely, it seems that transfer of the exclusively resultative semantics ofextant, non-innovative Cypriot Greek Present Perfect structures onto theinnovative Present Perfect is not operative either.

i. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to examine the emergence of what we shall term PresentPerfect A structures in contemporary Cypriot Greek, arguably a novel phenom-enon. An assumption widely held in the relevant literature on Greek is that peri-phrastic Present Perfect A structures are relatively innovative, as historically theyare reported as absent from most Modern Greek dialects; in contrast, PresentPerfect A is arguably the preferred structure in Standard Modern Greek. The level-ing of most Modern Greek dialects alongside the emergence of the Standard Mod-ern Greek koine, which has taken place over several decades, makes the tracing ofthe processes of the emergence of innovative Present Perfect A an arduous taskfor variationist approaches (cf. Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008; Winford1993). In contrast, as will be shown in this paper, in contemporary Cypriot Greekthe processes of such innovation are currently at work, arguably as a result of theongoing formation of the Cypriot Greek koine, which has been argued to havemixed grammatical properties (Terkourafi 2005; Tsiplakou, Papapavlou, Pavlou &Katsoyannou 2006; Tsiplakou 2009a, b) as a result of heavy contact with StandardGreek (which is still the 'H' variety in Cyprus' diglossic context). In this paper we

160 Dimitra Melissaropoulou et al.

attempt a preliminary examination of the emergence of Present Perfect A struc-tures in the Cypriot Greek koine through a quantitative study supplemented bynaturalistically sampled data. Crucially, we take into account major aspects ofthe semantic properties of Present Perfect A in an attempt to gauge whether theemergence of morphosyntactic Present Perfect A structures in Cypriot Greek goeshand in hand with the retrieval of the full gamut of the semantic features of Stan-dard Greek Present Perfect A, i.e. whether the availability of standard-like surfacemorphosyntax also allows for the retrieval/acquisition of the associated semanticproperties of Present Perfect A.

2. The Present Perfect in Greek

2.1 The Present Perfect in Standard Greek and in Greek dialects

The study of present perfect structures has been a favorite topic in Greek lin-guistics and has been treated within different theoretical frameworks, bothfrom a synchronic and from a diachronic viewpoint (cf. Aerts 1965; latridou,Anagnostopoulou & Izvorski 2002; Mirambel 1964; Moser 2003; Setatos 1993;Veloudis 2003). The Standard Greek Present Perfect (Present Perfect A) is a peri-phrastic tense, a combination of the auxiliary verb have and an uninflected form ofa lexical verb, arguably a relic of the Ancient Greek infinitive,1 with no agreementor tense features, but marked for perfective aspect:2

(1) 'exo dja'vasihave.Is study.ppL.pERF"I have studied."

In terms of semantics, it differs from Simple Past in that it cannot co-occur withadjuncts such as yesterday, the day before, last week, last summer, in 2000 etc. or,more generally, with the temporal adverbials allowed by Simple Past. Followingthe categorization of Huddleston and Pullum (2002:141-146) on the major usesof the Present Perfect (for other categorizations cf. Dahl & Hedin 2000; latridou,

1. Cf. Joseph 1983; Moser 1988 and references therein for relevant discussion (contraJannaris 1897).

2. The Greek Present Perfect may be broadly denned as a combination of two grammaticalcategories, tense and aspect. Overall, Present Perfect is a 'compound' tense in the sense itlinks the past and the present by expressing "continuing present relevance of a past situation[...]" ((cf. Comrie 1976:52); for more fine-grained semantic distinctions see Agouraki 2006;latridou, Anagnostopoulou & Izvorski 2002; Karpava & Agouraki forthc.; Moser 2003;Veloudis 2003 and also the discussion in this section of the paper).

The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited 161

Anagnostopoulou & Izvorski 2002; Karpava and Agouraki forthc.; Lindstedt2000), and also for the purposes of the discussion in this paper, we focus on thefollowing two possible readings of Present Perfect structures:

a. The experiential (existential) reading

(2) 'exo dja'vasi po'les fo'res to 'xari 'poterhave.Is study.pPL.PERF many times the Harry Potter"I've read Harry Potter many times."

b. The resultative reading

(3) 'exo dja'vasi 'torn bo'ro na 'vyohave.Is study.pPL.PERF now can.pRES.ls go.Is"I've studied, now I can go out."

The structure in (2) and (3) above is termed Present Perfect A. There exists, however,

another Present Perfect structure in Modern Greek, which is arguably dispreferredor even unavailable in the standard variety but is still relatively available in the vastmajority of Greek dialectal varieties,3 termed Present Perfect B in traditional gram-

matical descriptions. This structure also consists of an auxiliary verb, either exo

'have' or ime 'be' (depending on unaccusativity or ergativiry; cf. Agouraki 2006)and only allows a result(ative) reading. The morphosyntactic difference between

Present Perfect A and Present Perfect B lies in the fact that the latter involves apast participial form displaying either no agreement (as in (4)) or object agreement(as in (5)) if combined with exo 'have', and subject agreement if combined with ime

'be' (as in (6)); it is unclear whether there is aspectual marking on the participle:

(4) 'exo majire'men-o/-ahave.Is cook.ppL"I have cooked." (no agreement)

(5) {tin} 'exo majire'meni ti 'supa.{CL.FEM.ACC.S} have.lS.PRES COok.PPL.FEM.ACC.S the SOUp.FEM.ACC.S

"I have cooked {it} the soup." (object agreement)

(6) i so'fia 'ine djava'zmenithe Sophia.FEM.NOM.s be.3s.pRES study.ppL.FEM.NOM"Sophia has studied." (subject agreement)

3. Variationist research on this issue is still pending, but see Mirambel (1964) and Ralli,Melissaropoulou and Tsolakidis (2007). Tsakonian, still spoken in southeastern Arcadia (Liosis2007:437-438, 446-448, 459-463), Pontic, spoken mainly in northern Greece (Tombaidis1988:52-53) and Cappadocian, still spoken in central and northern Greece (Janse forthc.), arearguably exceptions.


As is indicated by example (7) below, Present Perfect B structures are typicallyassociated with the resultative reading only, in contrast with Present Perfect Astructures, which allow both readings (cf. (2) and (3) above).4

(7) **ime djava'zmeni po'les fo'resbe.ls.PRES read.PPL.FEM.NOM many times

"I have studied many times."

2.2 The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek

Cypriot Greek presents a very interesting picture as regards Present Perfect Astructures. According to Menardos (1925/1969), such structures were not avail-able in Cypriot Greek, which only displayed Present Perfect B structures, strictlywith a resultative reading.

(8) 'exo Ocava'zmeno ton 'xari 'ph;oterhave.ls.PRES read.FPL the Harry Potter"I have read Harry Potter."

(9) *'exo Ocava'zmeno po'L'es fo'res ton 'xari 'p'':oterhave.ls.pRES read.ppL many times the Harry Potter

"I have read Harry Potter many times."

(10) 'ine Ocava'zmenibe.3s.pRES read.pPL.FEM.NOM"She has studied."

(11) *'ine Ocava'zmeni po'L'es fo'resbe.3s.FRES read.PPL.FEM.NOM many times

"She has studied many times."

Cypriot Greek Simple Past typically encodes the experiential reading of StandardGreek Present Perfect A, but also the resultative one:5

(12) e'Ocavasa po'kes fores ton 'xari 'ph:oterread.PAST.ls many times the Harry Potter"I read (: have read) Harry Potter many times." (experiential)

4. The unavailability of the experiential reading may well be related to adjectival (ratherthan aspectual) marking on the 'participle', as is argued, among others, by Kratzer (2003).

5. As is well known, the present Perfect A is a relatively recent development in the historyof Greek; it is attested only once towards the end of the 11th century (1096) and, after a gapof a few centuries, in 16th century texts (Markopoulos 2009:158; Ralli, Melissaropoulou &Tsolakidis 2007:366).


(13) ema'irepsa en 'etimon to lu'vincook.PAST.ls be.FRES.3s ready the black-eyed pea"I have cooked, the black-eyed peas are ready." (resultative)

However, a host of spontaneous spoken data provide strong indications thatmorphosyntactic Present Perfect A is seeping into the Cypriot Greek koine,contra the claim in Karpava and Agouraki (forthc.) that in both Cypriot andStandard Greek the Present Perfect is receding and the relevant readings aretaken up by the Simple Past (cf. the opposite trend, i.e. the taking over of func-tions of the Simple Past by Present Perfect structures in Romance varieties,as mentioned in Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos 2008; Squartini & Bertinetto2000). The data below indicate that Present Perfect A structures are indeedproduced spontaneously by Cypriot Greek speakers and, moreover, that theyare used to express the two basic semantic functions of the Present Perfect A,i.e. the experiential and the resultative one.

The data come from participant observations and recordings of conversationsamong peers, which have been produced by a number of speakers in various com-municative situations, ranging from semi-formal (business meetings) to informalones (e.g. conversations over dinner among family members). In the first twoexamples, the Present Perfect A is couched in Standard Greek morphophonol-ogy, so arguably the speakers use an acrolectal register or even Standard Greekdue to the relative formality of the situation (cf. Tsiplakou 2009a). In these exam-ples, however, the use of the Present Perfect A is hypercorrective, in lieu of SimplePast (in Standard Greek proper these tokens would be ungrammatical due to theco-occurrence of the Present Perfect A and the temporal expressions):

(14) 'exo afipire'tisi ton 'avyustohave.ls retire.pPL.PERF in August"I have retired (: retired) last August."

(15) i 'formes a'ftes 'exun bimiurji'Qithe forms these.NOM have.PKES.3s create.PASS.ppL.PERF.

prin 'dio 'xron:abefore two years

"These forms have been (: were) created two years ago."

(16) i 'sani 'ekane scinoOe'sia sta la'tfia 'eqithe Sani.NOM do.PAST.3s directing at Lachia have.pRES.3s

'kani scinoQe'sia sta la'tfiado.ppL.pERF directing at Lachia

"Sani did some directing at Lachia-she has done some directing at Lachia."


Example (16) is particularly interesting; it comes from an informal communica-tive context (chat over coffee at the workplace), but the speaker 'corrects' the Sim-ple Past form ekane 'did' to efi kani 'has done', possibly due to the participation of

a speaker of Standard Greek in the conversation.The examples below are even more interesting in that the Present Perfect A

surfaces in utterances which are phonologically, morphologically and syntacticallyCypriot Greek; in (18) through (21) the Present Perfect A forms themselves aremorphophonologically and syntactically Cypriot Greek; e.g. Cypriot Greek exu-

men kami in lieu of Standard Greek exume kani 'have done' in (18), Cypriot Greekeft kami in lieu of Standard Greek efi kani 'has done' in (19), Cypriot Greek eft

xasi in lieu of Standard Greek efz xasi 'has lost' in (21) and Cypriot Greek syntaxin exumen to endaksi 'we have included it' in (20), i.e. a postverbal pronominalclitic where the corresponding Standard Greek structure to exume edaksi requires

proclisis.

(17) den 'exume 'vali xrono'diayram:a e'mis ja'ti enNEG have.PRES.lp setPPL.pERF timeline we because NEG

e'kseramen an e'ygrinetunknow.PAST.lp if approve.PASs.PAST.iMPF.3s

"We have not set a timeline ourselves, because we didn't know if it wasgoing to be approved."

(18) i paranje'lies pu * exumen 'kami me 'vasin tfinthe orders.NOM that have.lp do.ppL.pERF with basis.ACC that.ACC

to 'erjgrafo den 'exun apopliro'dithe document.Acc NEG have.FRES.3p pay off.PAss.ppL.PERF

"The orders we have placed on the basis of that document have not beenpaid off."

(19) a'po tin eni'merosin pu 'efi 'kami o 'ciriosfrom the briefing.ACC that have.pRES.3s do.PPL.PERF the Mister

xri'stoforos apo ce'ru is ce'ronChristopher.NOM from time to time

"...based on the briefing that Mr. Christopher has done from time to time..."

(20) 'exumen to e'ndaksi 'kato a'po tinhave.pRES.3p CL.NEUT.ACC.S include.ppL.PERF under from the

o'mbreha ton prosfo'ronumbrella.ACC the offers.GEN

"We have included it under the Offers umbrella."


(21) en ta fi 'xasi a'l:a sanNEC CL.NEUT.ACC.P have.pRES.3s lost.ppL.PERF but like

to'ra ksi'xanii.now forget.FRES.3s

"She hasn't lost it, but, like, nowadays she forgets stuff."

Overall, then, not only do the tokens of Present Perfect A in the above examplesshow up in fully Cypriot Greek registers, but, crucially, they are couched in Cypriotphonology and morphosyntax (i.e. they cannot be explained away as instances ofcode-switching into Standard Greek; cf. Tsiplakou 2009a, b). We take the avail-

ability of such spontaneous production to be a strong indication that the PresentPerfect A is becoming a bona fide part of the grammatical system of the Cypriot

Greek koine.

3. The quantitative study

3.1 Hypotheses

The aim of the quantitative study described in this section was to gain insightsinto (1) the degree of acceptability of Present Perfect A as an innovative struc-ture in the grammar of the Cypriot Greek koine; (2) the precise semantics of the

innovative Present Perfect A in Cypriot Greek (experiential, resultative or both);(3) the level of speaker competence in the use of Standard Greek Present Perfect

A, more precisely, whether it is used appropriately as experiential and/or resulta-tive, in other words, whether Cypriot Greek speakers also have native or near-

native competence as regards the semantics of Standard Greek Present PerfectA, or whether they merely use it hypercorrectively in lieu of Simple Past. Recallthat early evidence points to the fact that Cypriot Greek lacked Present PerfectA (Menardos 1925/1969) and only had Present Perfect B structures with strictly

resultative readings, while the experiential reading was coded by the Simple Past.The data in the previous section clearly fly in the face of the historical evidence.

Our hypotheses/questions are more precisely formulated as follows:

Hypothesis A: We expect to find increased acceptability of hypercorrective use ofPresent Perfect A in the Standard Greek tokens. Concomitantly, we do not expectnative or near-native competence in the semantics of Standard Greek PresentPerfect A.

Hypothesis B: If the innovative Present Perfect A is used in the Cypriot Greekkoine, the resultative reading ought to be preferred, as an effect of transfer fromthe bona fide Cypriot Present Perfect B.


3.2 Design

In order to test the hypotheses above, an electronic questionnaire containing30 sentences and distractors was devised. The questionnaire was made up oftwo parts. The first part contained fifteen sentences in Standard Greek, of which5 included hypercorrective uses of the Present Perfect A (e.g. with temporal adver-bials typically co-occurring with past tenses) which are ungrammatical in Stan-dard Greek, five included existential Present Perfect A and five included resultativePresent Perfect A. Since this was a preliminary study, a five- or seven-grade scalewas not used; instead, participants were asked for yes/no answers. The grammati-cality of the tokens was checked by five native speakers of Standard Greek. Thesecond part contained fifteen sentences in the Cypriot Greek koine; extreme carewas taken to avoid any marked basilectal features, which might prompt partici-pants to treat the Present Perfect A as unacceptable due to a register clash. Fivesentences included hypercorrective uses of Present Perfect A, five included PresentPerfect A with an intended experiential reading and five included Present PerfectA with an intended resultative reading; each token contained elements (e.g. fre-quency adverbs) that strongly pointed to one of the two readings at the exclusionof the other. Writing conventions for Cypriot Greek were made explicit so as notto distract respondents; respondents indeed reported that they had no problemswith the writing conventions used. The questionnaires were strictly anonymousand no personal data were asked for, except for general information that is usuallyconsidered to be relevant for statistics, i.e. age, gender, education, geographicalorigin, permanent residence.

3.3 Participants

The 324 completed questionnaires were answered by young educated speakers ofCypriot Greek; most were between their early twenties and mid-thirties (81%) andsome between 36 and 55 years old (19%). All participants were brought up andlive in the main urban areas of Cyprus, Limassol (47%), Nicosia (35%), Larnaca(11 %), Paphos (5%) and Famagusta (2%); most had high school (8%) and univer-sity education (92%), and were speakers with full command of the Cypriot Greekkoine and high levels of competence in Standard Greek through schooling. For thepurposes of the analysis a total of 10368 responses were elicited (324 completedquestionnaires X 32 questions).

3.4 Results

In this section we report on the results elicited for the Present Perfect A in StandardModern Greek and in the unmarked register of the Cypriot Greek koine deployed.


3.4.1 Hypercorrective Present Perfect ATable 1 shows the acceptability results for the hypercorrective uses of PresentPerfect A.

Table 1. Acceptability of hypercorrective Present Perfect A in Standard Modern Greekand Cypriot Greek tokens

Hypercorrective PPA Standard Greek Cypriot Greek

YES 512 35.2% 218 16%

NO 943 64.8% 1142 84%

The acceptability of the hypercorrective use of the Present Perfect A (in lieuof Simple Past) is substantial in the Standard Modern Greek tokens. The responseswere significantly different from each other: x2 (1. N = 272) = 134.3457, p < .001,Cramer- V = .218. It is, however, noteworthy that hypercorrective Present PerfectA is treated as grammatical, at least to some degree, in the Cypriot Greek tokens.

3.4.2 Acceptability of experiential Present Perfect AThe acceptability of the Present Perfect A on the experiential reading is reportedin the following table.

Table 2. Acceptability of experiential Present Perfect A in Standard Modern Greek

and Cypriot Greek tokens

Experiential PPA Standard Greek

YES

NO

1097

358

75.4%

24.6%

Cypriot Greek

541

819

39.8%

60.2%

The experiential Present Perfect A is largely preferred in the StandardModern Greek tokens and appears to be dispreferred in the Cypriot Greek ones.The responses were significantly different from each other: x2 Q> 272) = 366.5,p < .001, Cramer- V= .361, i.e. with medium effect. However, it is worth noting thatthe Present Perfect A on the experiential reading is deemed acceptable to a certainextent in the Cypriot Greek tokens.6

6. In fact, given that one of the potentially distorting factors in the questionnaire designwas the 'division' between Standard and Cypriot Greek, one would have expected thata strong metalinguistically driven preference for Present Perfect A in the Standard Greektokens would correlate with a strong metalinguistically driven preference for Simple Past in


3.4.3 Acceptability of resultative Present Perfect ATable 3 presents the responses for the resultative Present Perfect A in Standard andCypriot Greek.

Table 3. Acceptability of resultative Present Perfect A in Standard Modern Greekand Cypriot Greek tokens

Resultative PPA Standard Greek Cypriot Greek

YES 1207 83% 444 32.6%

NO 248 17% 916 67.4%

The preference for the resultative reading of Present Perfect A is analogousto that for the experiential reading; the resultative Present Perfect A in StandardModern Greek tokens attracted most of the positive answers, while in the case ofCypriot Greek tokens the Present Perfect A was dispreferred. The responses weresignificantly different from each other: £ (1,272) = 733.5, p < .001, Cramer- V= .51,i.e. with a large effect. As with the previous result, however, it is still worth notingthat the Present Perfect A on the resultative reading is deemed acceptable to acertain extent in the Cypriot Greek tokens (cf. also Note 6).

3.4.4 Acceptability of the resultative vs. the experiential Present Perfect A inStandard Modern Greek

The acceptability of resultative vs. experiential Present Perfect A in Standard Greekis shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Acceptability of resultative vs. experiential Present Perfect A in StandardModern Greek tokens

Standard Greek PPA Experiential

YES

NO

1097

358

75.4%

24.6%

Resultative

1207

248

83%

17%

Both readings of the Present Perfect A are accepted in the Standard Greektokens; there is however a significant number of readings that were marked asungrammatical as well. There is a preference for the resultative reading over the

the Cypriot Greek tokens; it is quite interesting that this expectation is not borne out in anystrong or absolute way; this can be taken as further indirect evidence for the acceptability ofthe innovative Present Perfect A structures in Cypriot Greek.


existential reading. The responses were significantly different from each other: ̂ 2

(1, N = 272) - 25.218, p < .001, Cramer-V = .093; the effect size test indicates noeffect, suggesting that the results should be treated with some caution.

3.4.5 Acceptability of the resultative vs. experiential Present Perfect Ain Cypriot Greek

The acceptability of resultative vs. experiential Present Perfect A in Cypriot Greekis shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Acceptability of resultative Present Perfect A in Cypriot Greek tokens

Cypriot Greek PPA Experiential

YES

NO

541

819

39.8%

60.2%

Resultative

444

916

32.6%

67.4%

Both readings are relatively dispreferred in the Cypriot Greek tokens. Surpris-ingly, the resultative reading generated more negative answers (cf. Section 4 below).The responses were significantly different from each other: ̂ (1,N= 272) = 14.975,p < .001, Cramer-V = .074 (on effect size cf. comment in Table 4 above).

4. Discussion

Overall, the questionnaire data indicate that even though the Present Perfect Ais more readily acceptable in the Standard Greek tokens, the fact that the PresentPerfect A was also acceptable to a considerable extent in the Cypriot Greek tokensindicates that the Cypriot Greek system may well be in the process of shifting;7 thereal question is, what is the precise nature of the shift?

Arguably, the high acceptability of hypercorrective Present Perfect A struc-tures in the Standard Greek tokens indicates that Present Perfect A is merelyinterpreted as [+PAST] and the choice between Simple Past and Present PerfectA is merely one of register.8 This is confirmed by the high acceptability of Present

7. Although the age distribution of the participants is not varied enough to make this anapparent-time study, we base our hypothesis of shifting and innovation on the historicalevidence, which points very strongly to the absence of Present Perfect A structures in CypriotGreek (cf. Menardos 1925/1969 and, more recently, Hadjioannou 1999).

8. One of the participants in the study, a highly educated young woman, mentions: "In anycase, personally I would, and still do, use the Present Perfect, mainly when talking to Cypriots,

i/o Dimitra Melissaropoulou et al.

Perfect A in Standard Greek on the experiential reading, which may also be con-veyed by the Simple Past in both varieties.

However, cross-comparisons, especially within the results from the CypriotGreek tokens reveal an even more interesting picture. It looks as if our initialhypothesis regarding the higher acceptability of resultative Present Perfect A inCypriot Greek (as a result of transfer of the semantic features associated withCypriot Present Perfect B surface morphology) is only partly confirmed. Con-versely, the acquisition of Standard Greek Present Perfect A surface morphologydoes not lead to full retrieval of one of the associated semantic features ofStandard Greek Present Perfect A, namely 'resultative.' This could, in turn, leadus to assume that the innovative Cypriot Greek Present Perfect A is in fact aninterlingual structure (cf. Tsiplakou 2009a, b) whose semantic features are largelyunderspecified or inert. This could in turn lead to some very interesting specula-tion about why an interpretable feature such as the resultative reading associatedwith Standard Greek Present Perfect A is not retrievable in the interlanguage,or, in this case, in the innovative use of Present Perfect A, despite visibility atthe semantics/discourse interface. We suggest that a possible explanation couldbe 'competition' with the bona fide Cypriot Present Perfect B, which is exclu-sively resultative. Further research is needed on the (socio)linguistic status ofPresent Perfect B, in order to determine the precise nature of such grammatical'competition'.

5. Conclusions

The results of the study described in this paper indicate that innovation as regardsPresent Perfect A is indeed taking place in contemporary Cypriot Greek, at leastamong its younger, more educated speakers (a comparison with data from olderspeakers is still pending). While such innovation may well be a result of languagecontact with Standard Greek, it is also clear that innovation at the level of surfacemorphosyntax does not entail perfect acquisition or transfer of the full gamut ofassociated semantic features of Standard Greek Present Perfect A. Conversely,while innovation at the morphosyntactic level may be superficially 'aided' bythe availability of periphrastic Present Perfect B in Cypriot Greek, it seems that

because some Cypriot Past Tense forms are too heavy and I don't like to use them, for example,epiamen (Ve went'). The Modern Greek Past Tense form piyame is kapos ('pretentious') andI think it sounds too Greek to Cypriot ears. So the Present Perfect is the best compromise, atleast for me."


transfer of the exclusively resultative semantics of Cypriot Greek Present PerfectB onto the innovative Present Perfect A is not an option either. Further researchwith more varied cohorts of speakers ought to provide more precise insights notonly regarding the extent of the innovation and its spread across different geo-graphical and social groups, but also regarding the availability of Present PerfectB across speaker repertoires and the precise role of its semantic properties inconstraining the emergence of full-blown innovation.

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