ABSTRACT
Research on the acquisition of Modern Greek (MG) as a native language started in the early 1970s. As opposed to most studies of child language carried out in the United States, the first studies on Greek child language were undertaken by linguists rather than psychologists. While Greek inflectional categories and subcategories have emerged by the end of the fourth or fifth year, the following years are characterized by mainly correct usage of the most common forms. Genuine patient-oriented passive constructions are even rarer in child speech than in adult spoken Greek. Due to the extensive use of the subjunctive mood for conveying modal meanings, modal verbs have a less important role to play in standard as well as child Greek as compared to languages such as English or German. In a fusional language like MG, morphology and morphophonology represent a major challenge to the learner.
