One of the best-known cases of language contact within Romance concerns the influence of Greek on the Romance dialects of southern Italy. Here I reconsider the traditional claim that these dialects are essentially Greek disguised as Romance. In particular, I shall draw on recent theories about parameter hierarchies and parametric change in terms of four discrete classes of parameter, namely macro-, meso-, micro-and nanoparameters, to show how such an approach is able to both model and formalize

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... the degree of morphosyntactic convergence and divergence exhibited between Italo-Greek and southern Italo-Romance. While recognizing the essential correctness of Rohlfs' original slogan spirito greco, materia romanza, this novel approach to an old question will afford us a more nuanced and refined interpretation of the precise nature and extent of Greek-Romance structural contact in this area of southern Italy. * I am grateful to the audiences of the 5 th International Conference on Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistics, the Cambridge University SyntaxLab, and the Leiden University Romance Linguistics Graduate Program for their comments and suggestions on earlier oral versions of this paper. I am particularly indebted to for their detailed comments and suggestions. The following abbreviations are used: ACC = accusative; AG = Ancient Greek; Appl = applicative head; Arl. = Ariellese; Aspect.s = aspectual predicates; BR = province of Brindisi; Brc. Cat. = Barcelona Catalan; Cal. = Calabrese; CG = Classical Greek; CZ = province of Catanzaro; DAT = dative; Dodec. = Dodecanese; Eng. = English: F = feminine or finite complement; Fr. = French; FUT = future; gc = Greko; GEN = genitive; gk = Griko; Gk = Greek; IMP = imperative; IO = indirect object; I = infinitival complement; It. = Italian; Lat. = Latin; LE = province of Lecce; M = masculine; MDL = middle voice; N = neuter; NOM = nominative; nth. = northern; Occ. = Occitan; PASS = passive; PL = plural; PRES = present; RC = province of Reggio Calabria; Sal. = Salentino; SG = singular; SMG = standard modern Greek; Sp. = Spanish; Srd. = Sardinian; st. = standard; sth. = southern; SVCs = serial verb constructions; TMAs = Tense, Mood and Aspect markers; Tsak. = Tsakonian; v PtP = participial v; VV = province of Vibo Valentia. anl21@cam.ac.uk