Interpretation of the Subjunctive in Modern Greek as a Foreign Language: A Case Study of Serbian Students

Abstract

The paper explores the semantic aspect of modality and, in particular, perfectivity in the usage of Modern Greek subjunctive by Serbian students of Modern Greek Studies, at the University of Belgrade. The subjunctive mood is not always comprehensible; hence, learners of Greek as a second/foreign language make a concerted effort to become aware of it. According to Comrie (1967:16): ‘‘perfectivity indicates the view of a situation as a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases’’. On the other hand, the imperfective is expressed by an ongoing or repeated action. Whether the subjunctive expresses the perfective or the imperfective is a question that a group of Serbian students were asked to figure out. More specifically, 78 native speakers of Serbian and L2 learners of Greek were tested on the comprehension of a number of subjunctives by means of a translation task. Based on error analysis, the results indicated that aspectual distinction is a matter of negative transfer from the mother tongue, but this is not always the case.