Hi everyone! 😄
I'm a linguistics student at a French university and I'm writing a paper on topicalization in Modern Greek (how constituents move to the front of a sentence). I would really appreciate it if native Greek speakers could check whether the following sentences are grammatical and natural.
For each sentence, could you tell me:
✅ Natural / grammatical
⚠️ Possible but a bit awkward
❌ Ungrammatical / not something a native speaker would say
Here are the sentences:
O Yannis agapai tin Maria. ("Yannis loves Maria.") — this is the basic word order, should be fine!
Tin Maria, o Yannis agapai. ("Maria, Yannis loves.") — object moved to the front
To vivlio, i Maria diavase. ("The book, Maria read.") — object moved to the front
Sto spiti, o Yannis meni. ("At home, Yannis lives.") — PP moved to the front
Tin Maria kai ton Yianni, o Kostas agapai. ("Maria and Yannis, Kostas loves.") — two objects moved to the front
Efimeries diavazei o Yannis. ("Newspapers, Yannis reads.") — object before verb
Einai tin Maria pou o Yannis agapai. ("It is Maria that Yannis loves.") — cleft construction
Any corrections to the Greek are also very welcome! Thank you so much 🙏