1 To appear 2014 in S. Manova (ed.) Affix ordering across languages and frameworks. N. York. Oxford University Press. Modern Greek parasynthetic verbs: A hierarchical relationship between prefixes and suffixes? Angeliki Efthymiou Democritus University of Thrace, Greece Abstract This paper deals with parasynthetic verbs in Modern Greek, whose structure contains both prefixes and suffixes: e.g. apo-cefal-iz-o ‘to decapitate’ (DPREF-BASE-DSUFF-ISUFF). After a brief overview of the relevant literature it is shown that the linear ordering of the prefixes and suffixes reflects the information content of each affix and its contribution to the morphological structure of the parasynthetic verb. More specifically, it is suggested that prefixes in parasynthetic verbs behave like internal prefixes (Di Sciullo 1997) and determine the core semantics of the verb and that affixation is influenced by various factors, such as register and frequency. Finally, the structure of the Modern Greek parasynthetic verbs (MGPVs) is explained in terms of optimal shape, constructional iconicity, transparency and biuniqueness. The findings of this study are exemplified by reference to 308 parasynthetic verbs, collected from the Reverse Dictionary of Modern Greek (2002). Keywords: affix ordering, hierarchy, constructional iconicity, information content, internal prefix, Greek, parasynthesis, transparency 1. Introduction This paper deals with parasynthetic verbs in Modern Greek, whose structure involves the simultaneous presence of prefixes and suffixes: e.g. apo-cefal-iz-o ‘to decapitate’ (DPREF- BASE-DSUFF-ISUFF). After a brief overview of the relevant literature, I will argue in favour of a hierarchical relation among the prefixes and suffixes that participate in these structures. I will also suggest that the ordering of the affixes that participate in Modern Greek