Language Variation - European Perspectives VII

The Cypriot Greek koine displays structural innovations, arguably as a result of prolonged contact with Standard Greek (SG), the ‘H’ variety in the diglossic context of the Greek Cypriot speech community. Periphrastic perfect forms are among such innovations. As regards the Past Perfect, in Standard Greek it has the principal reading of past in the past , as well as a remote past use; in contrast, the Cypriot Greek Past Perfect is largely interchangeable with the Aorist (Simple Perfective Past)