This volume contains 92 of the nearly 170 papers that were presented at the 8th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, held at the University of Ioannina, August 30 - September 2, 2007. We were proud to receive more than 200 abstracts in the initial stage. After the review process, some 170 papers were approved. The present volume contains a selection of those that were presented at the Conference (either the main session or one of the four workshops on: compounds, intonation, lexicography and language teaching) and were then submitted for publication.

The 8th ICGL appreciates all the papers presented and we hereby thank all speakers, whether they submitted a paper for publication or not. Clearly, a special debt is owed to our reviewers – both external and internal – for devoting their time to reviewing the abstracts. The authors of each paper are primarily responsible for the final form of their contribution, as they were all asked to approve their texts after making editorial changes.

We would also like to thank our invited speakers who were kind enough to accept our invitation to travel to Ioannina and deliver plenary presentations based on their research in various fields of Linguistics: Vit Bubenik (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), Christophoros Charalambakis (University of Athens), Geoffrey Horrocks (University of Cambridge, UK), Marina Nespor (Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Italy), and Lukas Tsitsipis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).

As decided at the Business Meeting (held on September 1, 2007) Chicago (USA) will be the next conference venue in 2009; for 2011 the Democritus University of Thrace was suggested as a possible venue. One of the highlights of the 8th ICGL was the establishment of the International Society of Greek Linguistics (I.S.G.L.), and the election of the first governing body, with Professor Irene Philippaki-Warburton as its president. The Society, which will soon be officially recognised under Greek law will, among other things, be actively involved in the organisation of future ICGLs.

We would like to thank all those (colleagues, students and administrative staff at the University of Ioannina) who supported, in various ways, the conference and the publication of the Proceedings. We would especially like to thank Georgia Efthymiou and Vassiliki Lefka, graduate students at the Department of Linguistics, University of Ioannina, for their invaluable help in the final stages of editing and proofreading.

Finally, we wish to express our deep sorrow about the untimely death of Professor Lukas Tsitsipis (1946-2008), a distinguished and esteemed colleague. It is unfortunate that Lukas did not have the time to submit the written version of his plenary presentation. This volume is dedicated to his memory.

Ioannina, June 2009

The Editorial Committee
Mary Baltazani
George K. Giannakis
Tasos Tsangalidis
George J. Xydopoulos

Contents