achieve this goal, we relied on corpora and other associated quantitative tools which are constructed exclusively for Greek by ILSP and are freely available on the web (ILSP). Our main goal was to create 200 pseudonouns that would sound native enough but yet not too familiar to the native speakers in a measurable way. For this purpose, we manipulated the available sources by creating a finer-grained corpus which incorporates information on the morphological category, word size and syllable type of its items.

Revithiadou, A., D. Ioannou, M. Chatzinikolaou & K. Aivazoglou. 2016. Constructing pseudowords for experimental research: Problems and solutions. In Selected Papers of the 21st International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (ISTAL 21), Matthaioudakis, M. & K. Nicolaidis, E. Agathopoulou & Th. Alexiou (eds.), 356–365. Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki.

Revithiadou, A., D. Ioannou, M. Chatzinikolaou & K. Aivazoglou. 2013. Constructing pseudowords for experimental research: Problems and solutions. Paper presented at the 21st International Symposium on Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, Department of English Linguistics and Literature, A.U.Th, Thessaloniki, April 5-7, 2013. [pdf, 413KB]

Revithiadou, A., D. Ioannou, M. Chatzinikolaou & K. Aivazoglou. 2012. Constructing pseudowords for experimental research: A case study. Paper presented at the 4th Conference on Language Disorders in Greek, Technological Institute of Patras, Patras, September 28-29, 2012. [pdf, 2.67MB]

predictable or, else, the phonologically determined aspect of the stress system. The issue of whether the phonological default also reflects the preferred stress pattern in the sense that it is the one that shows wider distribution across and within morphological classes and the one that speakers favor when confronted with stress placement decisions remains fairly unexplored in the literature. We explored, therefore, whether speakers of Greek – a language that presents a three way accentual contrast (antepenultimate, penultimate and ultimate stress) – show a bias for a specific pattern and, if they do, whether this bias depends on morphological information. To this end, we designed and carried out two perception experiments that tested listeners’ stress prominence identification using stimuli where the acoustic cues that signal stress were equated.

The results of our study showed that Greek speakers erroneously perceived prominence in PsWs that had been manipulated so that the acoustic cues that signal stress in Greek were equated and thus not available to them (range of perceived prominence: 72%-77% across experiments and length of PsWs). The similarity of findings between Experiment 1 (all syllables stressed) and Experiment 2 (all syllables unstressed) ensures that the listeners’ behavior cannot be attributed to our stress manipulation techniques. Greek speakers were found to relate certain stress judgments with specific morphological classes (m-classes); they showed a noticeable bias towards APU stress in PsWs with the suffixes -o/-os and a bias towards PU and APU stress in PsWs with the suffixes a/-as, while U stress was strongly preferred in PsWs with the suffix -o and moderately preferred in PsWs of the suffix -os. This indicates that the phonological default (i.e., APU stress) is without doubt active in Greek speakers’ grammars and hence empirically grounded, without that meaning that speakers do not exploit other stress preferences (i.e., PU and U stress).

When comparing our findings with lexical frequencies in a Greek corpus it seems that lexical frequency has indeed a larger effect on Greek speakers’ stress preferences in PsWs in -o/-os, which are are argued to be static m-classes in Greek compared to the more productive a/-as classes. This finding, combined with the fact that speakers avoid certain stress patterns (i.e., U stress) in favor of more unmarked ones (e.g., PU stress), supports a view that Greek speakers are not blind frequency matchers when performing in stress decision tasks. On the basis of these results, we argue that the THV serves as an index for the stress preference patterns observed in our data; APU is more preferred in nouns with the THEME-V-o, whereas both PU and APU are more preferred in nouns with the THEME-V-a. Finally, by using Stochastic OT grammars, we demonstrate that the grammars we constructed for the data at hand make extremely accurate predictions regarding the probability distributions of the Greek stress patterns.

Revithiadou, A. & A. Lengeris. 2016. One or many? In search of the default stress in Greek. In Dimensions of Stress, Heinz J., R. Goedemans & H. van der Hulst (eds.), 263–290. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Revithiadou, A., A. Lengeris & D. Ioannou. 2013. One or many? In search of the default stress in Greek. Paper presented at the 21st International Symposium on Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, Department of English Linguistics and Literature, A.U.Th, Thessaloniki, April 5-7, 2013.

Revithiadou, A., A. Lengeris & D. Ioannou. 2012. In search of the default stress in Greek: Evidence from perception. Paper presented at 10th Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP10), Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, January 16-19, 2013. [pdf, 5.43MB]

and, in general, exhibits elevated percentages in nouns in -o/-os compared to other morphological classes (m-classes). APU stress appears to be a firm choice only for -o/-os nouns. Moreover, we show that lexical frequency plays an important role in shaping speakers’ stress production patterns and that its effect is more forcefully exercised in nouns in -o/-os than in nouns in a/-as. This conclusion is further buttressed if one takes into consideration that nouns with the theme vowel -o- are more archaic and mostly of Ancient Greek stock, whereas nouns which share the theme vowel -a- represent the more productive and dynamic m-classes in Greek (Anastassiadis 2012). On the basis of these results, we claim that static/unproductive m-classes are associated with grammars that reflect more faithfully the frequency effects of the Lexicon. Contrariwise, the low percentage of marked stress patterns, i.e. U stress, in productive m-classes (i.e., -a/-as) indicates that lexical statistics are filtered by constraints that ban out marked patterns as the most favored or second best choice even when they prevail in the Lexicon. The fact that Greek speakers apply phonological-grounding by adjusting their outputs towards a less marked (e.g., in terms of foot structure) option leads us to conclude that they are not totally ‘blind frequency matchers’ (e.g., Frazier 1995; Fodor 1998; Zuraw 2007; Becker et al. 2011).

Apostolouda, V., A. Revithiadou & D. Papadopoulou. 2012. Phonological factors outrank frequency effects: Evidence from Greek stress. Poster presented at the 9th Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP9), ZAS Berlin, Berlin, January 18-21, 2012. [ pdf, 71.4MB]

different than the language-specific default emerges in the absence of overt morphological information.

The same experiment was conducted to L2 learners of Greek with Russian as a native language. The results revealed that the Russian learners, like the native speakers, were aware of the morphological orientation of stress in inflected words.

Revithiadou, Α., Κ. Nikolou & D. Papadopoulou. 2015. Stress in the absence of morphological conditioning: An experimental investigation of stress in Greek acronyms. Journal of Greek Linguistics 15 (2), 187–234. DOI: 10.1163/15699846-01502003

Nikolou, Κ., Α. Revithiadou & D. Papadopoulou. 2012. Exceptional stress patterns in the absence of morphological conditioning. In 10th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, Gavriilidou, Z., Efthymiou, A., Thomadaki, E. & P. Kambaki-Vougioukli (eds.). Democritus University, Komotini. [pdf, 360KB]

Nikolou, K., A. Revithiadou, D. Papadopoulou. 2012. Stress in morphology-dependent systems when morphology is absent: A case study from L2 Greek. Poster presented at the 9th Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP9), ZAS Berlin, Berlin, January 18-21, 2012. [ pdf, 3.4MB]