The morphosyntax of the periphrastic future under negation in Cypriot Greek

Abstract

In Cypriot Greek, the negated future is marked by the element tha, which appears instead of the expected present tense copula and a selected subordinating element. This paper documents the distribution of this item for the first time, and presents an analysis in Distributed Morphology that analyzes tha as a portmanteau morpheme realizing two heads in the context of negation. This analysis requires that spans (or targets of Fusion) can include a verb and the head of its c complement.