Defining “ Word ” in Modern Greek : A Response to Philippaki - Warburton & Spyropoulos 1999

1. Introduction The construct word plays a key role in linguistic theorizing. For instance, there are theories of syntax that are entirely word-based, such as " Word Grammar " (Hudson 1984), as well as theories in which the distinction between a word and a non-word has consequences for other aspects of the grammar. Relevant to this latter point, for instance, is Government-Binding theory, where the operation of the rule of Verb Raising moves elements to attach to affixes but not to attach to words, as in the analysis of Rivero 1990 on the structure underlying the generation of Albanian and Greek nonactive voice forms. Moreover, there are principles, such as Lexical Integrity (cf. among others, for discussion pro and con), which rules out the possibility of a syntactic rule operating into or disrupting a properly constituted word, that are defined in terms of word. All such theorizing presupposes that one can determine what a word actually is, so that the constructs that depend on this notion can operate as needed. It turns out, though, that the task of defining what a word is in any language is a challenge. It seems clear that words have something to do with syntax, in that they are typically independent elements that are manipulated by rules of syntax and can be combined to form syntactic phrases and clauses. Indeed, the Hellenistic grammarians defined word as " the minimal part of a syntactic construction ". 1 But while it may therefore seem quite straightforward and easy to identify what a word is at first glance on the basis of what the syntax requires — and indeed for many languages it seems that naïve speakers have an intuitive sense in this regard 2 — at the same time, it must be