Hypothetical Proto-Greek area of settlement (2200/2100–1900 BC) suggested by Katona (2000), Sakellariou (2016, 1980, 1975) and Phylaktopoulos (1975)View about "Proto-Greek area" in the 3rd millennium BC, reconstructed byVladimir I. Georgiev (1973 & 1981). The boundaries are based on the high concentration of archaic Greek place-names in the region in contrast to southern Greece which preserves manypre-Greek.[6][7] Modern consensus is that pre-Proto-Greek and other IE languages split from PIE only after 2500BC, with proto-Greek forming in the proto-Greek area during theEarly Helladic III period (c. 2200–2000 BC).[8]
Proto-Greek emerged from the diversification of the lateProto-Indo-European language (PIE); a process whose last phase gave rise to the later language families and occurredc. 2500 BC.[14] Pre-Proto-Greek, the Indo-European dialect from which Proto-Greek originated, emergedc. 2400 – c. 2200 BC, in an area which bordered pre-Proto-Indo-Iranian to the east and pre-Proto-Armenian and pre-Proto-Phrygian to the west, at the eastern borders of southeastern Europe; according to theKurgan hypothesis.[15][16] Speakers of what would become Proto-Greek,migrated from theirhomeland (which could have been northeast of theBlack Sea), and reached Greece in a date set around the transition of the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age.[17] The evolution of Proto-Greek could be considered within the context of an earlyPaleo-Balkansprachbund that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages.[18] The characteristically Greek representation of word-initiallaryngeals byprothetic vowels is shared, for one, with theArmenian language, which also seems to share some other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek; this has led some linguists to propose ahypothetically closer relationship between Greek and Armenian, although evidence remains scant.[19]
According to Filos (2014), the emergence of Proto-Greek was a long and continuous linguistic evolution, as the predecessors of Greek speakers were migrating towards the outskirts of Greece, somewhere to the north(-west) of the Greek peninsula proper, where they eventually merged with pre-Greek populations to form the Proto-Greek language.[20] A. L. Katona (2000) places the beginning of the migration from Ukraine towards the southc. 2400 – c. 2300 BC. Their proposed route of migration passed through Romania and the eastern Balkans to theEvros river valley from where their main body moved west.[21] As such Katona as well as M.V Sakellariou agree that the main body of Greek speakers settled in a region that included southwesternIllyria,Epirus, northwesternThessaly andwestern Macedonia.[22]
Older theories like those ofVladimir I. Georgiev placed Proto-Greek in northwestern Greece and adjacent areas (approximately up to the Aulon river to the north), includingParauaea,Tymphaia,Athamania,Dolopia,Amphilochia, andAcarnania, as well as west and north Thessaly (Histiaeotis,Perrhaibia,Tripolis), andPieria inMacedonia, during theLate Neolithic.[6][23][24][25] The boundaries are based on the high concentration of archaic Greek place-names in the region, in contrast to southern Greece which preserves manypre-Greek.[6]Radoslav Katičić considered these findings highly significant, and agreed that due to the minimal traces of pre-Greek toponymy in the region, Epirus and western Thessaly must have formed the region of concentration of Proto-Greek speakers, before their spread southwards.[26] However, the dating of proto-Greek in Bronze Age Greece is compatible with the inherited lexicon from the commonProto-Indo-European language, which excludes any possibility of it being present inNeolithic Greece.[27][28]
In modern bibliography, models about the settlement and development of proto-Greek speakers in the Greek peninsula place it in the region at the earliest around 2200–2000 BC, during the Early Helladic III.[2][1] Asko Parpola and Christian Carpelan (2005) date the arrival of Proto-Greek speakers into the Greek peninsula to 2200BC,[4]: 131 whileCarl Blegen (1928) dates it toc. 1900 BC.[1]
Diversification
Ivo Hajnal dates the beginning of the diversification of Proto-Greek into the subsequent Greek dialects to a point not significantly earlier than 1700BC.[5] The conventional division of the Greek dialects prior to 1955 differentiated them between a West Greek (consisting of Doric and Northwest Greek) and an East Greek (consisting of Aeolic, Arcado-Cypriot, and Attic-Ionic) group. However, after the decipherment of theLinear B script, Walter Porzig andErnst Risch argued for a division between a Northern (consisting of Doric, Northwest Greek, and Aeolic) and a Southern (consisting of Mycenaean, Arcado-Cypriot, and Attic-Ionic) group, which remains fundamental until today.[9][10][11][12]
Delabialization of labiovelars next to/u/, the "boukólos rule". This was a phonotactic restriction already in Proto-Indo-European, and continued to be productive in Proto-Greek. It ceased to be in effect when labiovelars disappeared from the language in post-Proto-Greek.
Merging of sequences of velar +*w into the labiovelars, perhaps with compensatory lengthening of the consonant in one case: PIE*h₁éḱwos > PG*híkkʷos > Mycenaeani-qo/híkkʷos/, Attichíppos, Aeolicíkkos.
Debuccalization of/s/ to/h/ in intervocalic and prevocalic positions (between two vowels, or if word-initial and followed by a vowel).[30] Loss of prevocalic*s was not completed entirely, evidenced bysȳ́s ~hȳ́s "pig" (from PIE*suh₁-),dasýs "dense" anddásos "dense growth,forest";*som "with" is another example, contaminated with PIE*ḱom (Latincum; preserved in Greekkaí,katá,koinós) to Mycenaeanku-su /ksun/, Homeric and Old Atticksýn, latersýn. Furthermore,sélas "light in the sky, as in theaurora" andselḗnē/selā́nā "moon" may be more examples of the same if it derived from PIE*swel- "to burn" (possibly related tohḗlios "sun", Ionichēélios <*sāwélios).
Strengthening of word-initialy- tody- >dz- (note thatHy- >Vy- regularly due to vocalization of laryngeals).
Filos[30] argues for a "probable" early loss of final non-nasal[31] stop consonants: compare Latinquid and Sanskritcid with Greekti; however, Mycenaean texts are inconclusive in offering evidence on this matter, as theLinear B script did not explicitly mark final consonants.[30] However, it appears that these stops were preserved word finally for unstressed words, reflected inek "out of".[31]
Final/m/ >/n/.
Syllabic resonants*m̥*n̥*l̥ and*r̥ that are not followed by a laryngeal are resolved to vowels or combinations of a vowel and consonantal resonant. This resulted in an epenthetic vowel of undetermined quality (denoted here as*ə). This vowel then usually developed intoa but alsoo in some cases. Thus:[32]
*m̥,*n̥ >*ə, but >*əm,*ən before a sonorant.*ə appears aso in Mycenaean after a labial:pe-mo (spérmo) "seed" vs. usualspérma <*spérmn̥. Similarly,o often appears in Arcadian after a velar, e.g.déko "ten",hekotón "one hundred" vs. usualdéka,hekatón <*déḱm̥,*sem-ḱm̥tóm.
*l̥,*r̥ >*lə,*rə, but*əl,*ər before sonorants and analogously.*ə appears aso in Mycenaean, Aeolic and Arcadocypriot. Example: PIE*str̥-tos > usualstratós, Aeolicstrótos "army"; post-PIE*ḱr̥di-eh₂ "heart" > Attickardíā, Homerickradíē, Pamphyliankorzdia.
Changes to the aspirates
Major changes included:
Devoicing of voiced aspirates *bʰ, *dʰ, *ɡʰ, *ɡʷʰ to *pʰ, *tʰ, *kʰ, *kʷʰ.[30] This change preceded and fed both stages of palatalization.
Loss of aspiration before*s, e.g.heksō "I will have" < Post-PIE*seǵʰ-s-oh₂.
Loss of aspiration before*y, detailed under "palatalization".
Grassmann's law was a process ofdissimilation in words containing multiple aspirates. It caused an initial aspirated sound to lose its aspiration when a following aspirated consonant occurred in the same word. It was a relatively late change in Proto-Greek history, and must have occurred independently[31] of the similar dissimilation of aspirates (also known asGrassmann's law) inIndo-Iranian, although it may represent a commonareal feature. The change may have even been post-Mycenaean:[30]
It postdates the Greek-specific de-voicing of voiced aspirates;
It postdates the change of/s/ >/h/, which is then lost in the same environment:ékhō "I have" <*hekh- < PIE*seǵʰ-oh₂, but futureheksō "I will have" <*heks- < Post-PIE*seǵʰ-s-oh₂;
It postdates even the loss of aspiration before*y that accompanied second-stage palatalization (see below), which postdates both of the previous changes (as well as first-stage palatalization);
On the other hand, it predates the development of the first aorist passive marker-thē- since the aspirate in that marker has no effect on preceding aspirates.
Greek is unique among Indo-European languages in reflecting the three differentlaryngeals with distinct vowels. Most Indo-European languages can be traced back to a dialectal variety of late Proto-Indo-European (PIE) in which all three laryngeals had merged (after colouring adjacent short/e/ vowels), but Greek clearly cannot. For that reason, Greek is extremely important in reconstructing PIE forms.
Greek shows distinct reflexes of the laryngeals in various positions:
Most famously, between consonants, where original vocalic*h₁,*h₂,*h₃ are reflected as/e/,/a/,/o/ respectively (the so-calledtriple reflex). All other Indo-European languages reflect the same vowel from all three laryngeals (usually/a/, but/i/ or other vowels inIndo-Iranian):
Proto-Indo-European
Greek
Vedic Sanskrit
Latin
*dʰh₁s- "sacred, religious"
θέσφατος (thésphatos) "decreed by God"
धिष्ण्य (dhíṣṇya-) "devout"
fānum "temple" <*fasnom <*dʰh̥₁s-no-
*sth₂-to- "standing, being made to stand"
στατός (statós)
स्थित (sthíta-)
status
*dh₃-ti- "gift"
δόσις (dósis)
दिति (díti-)
datiō
An initial laryngeal before a consonant (a*HC- sequence) leads to the same triple reflex, but most IE languages lost such laryngeals and a few reflect them initially before consonants. Greek vocalized them (leading to what are misleadingly termedprothetic vowels): Greekérebos "darkness" < PIE*h₁regʷos vs.Gothicriqiz- "darkness"; Greekáent- "wind" <*awent- < PIE*h₂wéh₁n̥t- vs. Englishwind,Latinventus "wind",Bretongwent "wind".
The sequence*CRHC (C = consonant,R = resonant,H = laryngeal) becomesCRēC,CRāC,CRōC fromH =*h₁,*h₂,*h₃ respectively. (Other Indo-European languages again have the same reflex for all three laryngeals:*CuRC inProto-Germanic,*CiRˀC/CuRˀC with acute register inProto-Balto-Slavic,*CīRC/CūRC inProto-Indo-Iranian,*CRāC inProto-Italic andProto-Celtic.) Sometimes,CeReC,CaRaC,CoRoC are found instead: Greekthánatos "death" vs.Doric Greekthnātós "mortal", both apparently reflecting*dʰn̥h₂-tos. It is sometimes suggested that the position of the accent was a factor in determining the outcome.
The sequence*CiHC tends to become*CyēC,*CyāC,*CyōC fromH =*h₁,*h₂,*h₃ respectively, with later palatalization (see below). Sometimes, the outcomeCīC is found, as in most other Indo-European languages, or the outcomeCiaC in the case of*Cih₂C.
All of the cases may stem from an early insertion of/e/ next to a laryngeal not adjacent to a vowel in the Indo-European dialect ancestral to Greek (subsequently coloured to/e/,/a/,/o/ by the particular laryngeal in question) prior to the general merger of laryngeals:
In the sequence*CHV (includingCHR̥C, with a vocalized resonant), the laryngeal colours a following short/e/, as expected, but it otherwise disappears entirely (as in most other Indo-European languages but not Indo-Iranian whose laryngealaspirates a previous stop and prevents the operation ofBrugmann's law).
In a*VHV sequence (a laryngeal between vowels, including a vocalic resonantR̥), the laryngeal again colours any adjacent short/e/ but otherwise vanishes early on. That change appears to be uniform across the Indo-European languages and was probably the first environment in which laryngeals were lost. If the firstV was*i,*u or a vocalic resonant, a consonantal copy was apparently inserted in place of the laryngeal:*CiHV >*CiyV,*CuHV >*CuwV,*CR̥HV possibly >*CR̥RV, withR̥ always remaining as vocalic until the dissolution of vocalic resonants in the various daughter languages. Otherwise, ahiatus resulted, which was resolved in various ways in the daughter languages, typically by convertingi,u and vocalic resonants, when it directly followed a vowel, back into a consonant and merging adjacent non-high vowels into a single long vowel.
Palatalization
Consonants followed by consonantal*y werepalatalized, producing variousaffricate consonants (still represented as a separate sound in Mycenaean) andgeminated palatal consonants.[30] Any aspiration was lost in the process. The palatalized consonants later simplified, mostly losing their palatal character. Palatalization occurred in two separate stages. The first stage affected only dental consonants, and the second stage affected all consonants.
First palatalization
The first palatalization replaced post-PIE sequences of dental stop +*y with alveolar affricates:
Before
After
*ty,*tʰy
*t͡s
*dy
*d͡z
The affricate derived from the first palatalization of*ty and*tʰy merged with the outcome of the inherited clusters*ts,*ds and*tʰs, all becoming*t͡s.[33]
Restoration
After the first palatalization changed*ty and*tʰy into*t͡s, the consonant*y was restored after original*t or*tʰ in morphologically transparent formations. The initial outcome of restoration may have been simply*ty and*tʰy, or alternatively, restoration may have yielded an affricate followed by a glide,*t͡sy, in the case of both original*t and original*tʰ.[34] Either way, restored*t(ʰ)y would go on to merge via the second palatalization with the reflex of*k(ʰ)y, resulting in a distinct outcome from the*t͡s derived from the first palatalization.[34] There may also have been restoration of*y after original*d in the same circumstances, but if so, it apparently merged with the*d͡z that resulted from the first palatalization before leaving any visible trace.[34]
However, restoration is not evident inMycenaean Greek, where the reflex of original*t(ʰ)y (which became a consonant transcribed as ⟨s⟩) is consistently written differently from the reflex of original*k(ʰ)y (which became a consonant transcribed as ⟨z⟩ via the second palatalization).[34]
Second palatalization
The second palatalization took place following the resolution of syllabic laryngeals and sonorants, and prior to Grassmann's law. It affected all consonants followed by the palatal glide*y. The following table, based on American linguistAndrew Sihler,[35] shows the outcomes of the second palatalization:
Before (post-PIE)
After
*py,*pʰy
*pť
*ty,*tʰy (or*t͡sy)
*ťť
*ky,*kʰy
*kʷy,*kʷʰy
(*d͡zy)
*ďď
*gy
*gʷy
*ly
*ľľ
*my,*ny
*ňň
*ry
*řř
*sy >*hy
*yy
*wy
*ɥɥ >*yy
Sihler reconstructs the palatalized stops (shown in the above table as*ť*ď) with a degree of assibilation and transcribes them as*č*ǰ.[36]
The resulting palatal consonants and clusters of Proto-Greek were resolved in varying ways prior to the historical period.
Proto-Greek
Homeric
Attic
West Ionic
Other Ionic
Boeotian, Cretan
Arcadian
Cypriot
Lesbian, Thessalian
Other
*pť
pt
*t͡s
final,[37] initial, after*n,[38] after long vowel or diphthong[39]
The restoration of*y after original*t or*tʰ (resulting in*ťť) occurred only in morphologically transparent formations, by analogy with similar formations in which*y was preceded by other consonants. In formations that were morphologically opaque, the restoration did not take place and the*t͡s that resulted from the first palatalization of*ty and*tʰy remained. Hence, depending on the type of formation, the pre-Proto-Greek sequences*ty and*tʰy have different outcomes in the later languages. In particular, medial*t(ʰ)y becomes Attic-s- in opaque formations but-tt- in transparent formations.
The outcome of PG medial*ts in Homeric Greek iss after a long vowel, and vacillation betweens andss after a short vowel:tátēsi dat. pl. "rug" <tátēt-,possí(n)/posí(n) dat. pl. "foot" <pod-. This was useful forthe composer of the Iliad and Odyssey, sincepossí with doubles scans as long-short, whileposí with singles scans as short-short. Thus the writer could use each form in different positions in a line.
For words with original*dy, no distinction is found in any historically attested form of Greek between the outcomes of the first and second palatalizations, and so there is no visible evidence of an opposition between*d͡z and a secondary restored cluster*d͡zy >*ďď. However, it is reasonable to think that words with*dy originally underwent parallel treatment to words with original*ty and*tʰy.[49] The reflex of*dy also merged with the reflex of*g(ʷ)y, with one of the two word-initial reflexes of PIE *y-, and with original*sd, as in PIE *h₃esdos/osdos >όζος 'branch' or PIE *si-sd- > ἵζω 'take a seat'.[50] The merger with*sd was probably post-Mycenaean, but occurred before the introduction of the Greek alphabet.[51]
Vowels
Osthoff's law: Shortening of long vowels before a sonorant in the same syllable. E.g.*dyēws "skyling, sky god" >Attic GreekZeús/dzeús/.
Cowgill's law: Raising of/o/ to/u/ between a resonant and a labial.[30]
Proto-Greek retained the Indo-Europeanpitch accent, but developed a number of rules governing it:[53]
Thelaw of limitation, also known as thetrisyllabicity law, confined the freedom of the accents to the final three syllables. Alternatively, it can be analyzed as restraining the accent to be within the last fourmorae of the word.
Wheeler's law, which causesoxytone words to become paroxytone when ending in a syllable sequence consisting of heavy-light-light (ex.*poikilós >poikílos).
Loss of accent in finite verb forms. This probably began in verbs of independent clauses, a development also seen inVedic Sanskrit, where they behave as clitics and bear no accent.[54] The accentless forms later acquired a default recessive accent, placed as far left as the law of limitation allowed.
Certain imperative forms, such asidé "go!", regularly escaped this process and retained their accent.
Many Proto-Greek suffixes bore lexical stress. Accentuation rules applied post-Proto-Greek such asVendryes's law andBartoli's law modified how and if this would surface.[53]
Post-Proto-Greek changes
Sound changes that postdate Proto-Greek, but predate the attested dialects, includingMycenaean Greek, include:
Creation of secondarys from earlier affricates,*nty >*nts >ns. This was, in turn, followed by a change similar to the one described above, loss of then with compensatory lengthening:*apónt-ya >apónsa >apoûsa, "absent", feminine.
In southern dialects (including Mycenaean, but not Doric),-ti- >-si- (assibilation).
The following changes are apparently post-Mycenaean because early stages are represented inLinear B:
Loss of/h/ (from original/s/), except initially, e.g. Doricníkaas "having conquered" <*níkahas <*níkasas.
Loss of/j/, e.g.treîs "three" <*tréyes.
Loss of/w/ in many dialects (later than loss of/h/ and/j/). Example:étos "year" from*wétos.
Loss oflabiovelars, which were converted (mostly) into labials, sometimes into dentals (or velars next to/u/, as a result of an earlier sound change). See below for details. It had not yet happened in Mycenaean, as is shown by the fact that a separate letter⟨q⟩ is used for such sounds.
Contraction of adjacent vowels resulting from loss of/h/ and/j/ (and, to a lesser extent, from loss of/w/); more inAttic Greek than elsewhere.
Rise of a distinctivecircumflex accent, resulting from contraction and certain other changes.
Loss of/n/ before/s/ (incompletely in Cretan Greek), withcompensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.
Raising ofā toē/ɛː/ in Attic and Ionic dialects (but not Doric). In Ionic, the change was general, but in Attic it did not occur after /i/, /e/ or /r/. (Note Attickórē "girl" <*kórwā; loss of /w/ after /r/ had not occurred at that point in Attic.)
Vendryes's Law in Attic, where a penultimate circumflex accent was retracted onto a preceding light syllable if the final syllable was also light: light-circumflex-light > acute-heavy-light. For example,hetoîmos > Attichétoimos.
Analogical prosodic changes that converted a penultimate heavy acute accent to circumflex (retraction by one mora) if both the final and (if present) the preceding syllable were light.[54] This produced alternations within a paradigm, for example Atticoînos "wine" nominative singular, but genitive singularoínou.
Note that/w/ and/j/, when following a vowel and not preceding a vowel, combined early on with the vowel to form a diphthong and so were not lost.
Loss of/h/ and/w/ after a consonant was often accompanied bycompensatory lengthening of a preceding vowel.
The development of labiovelars varies from dialect to dialect:
Due to the PIEboukólos rule, labiovelars next to/u/ had already been converted to plain velars:boukólos "herdsman" <*gʷou-kʷólos (cf.boûs "cow" <*gʷou-) vs.aipólos "goatherd" <*ai(g)-kʷólos (cf.aíks, gen.aigós "goat");elakhús "small" <*h₁ln̥gʷʰ-ús vs.elaphrós "light" <*h₁ln̥gʷʰ-rós.
In Attic and some other dialects (but not, for example, Aeolic), labiovelars before some front vowels became dentals. In Attic,kʷ andkʷʰ becamet andth, respectively, before/e/ and/i/, whilegʷ becamed before/e/ (but not/i/). Cf.theínō "I strike, kill" <*gʷʰen-yō vs.phónos "slaughter" < *gʷʰón-os;delphús "womb" <*gʷelbʰ- (Sanskritgarbha-) vs.bíos "life" <*gʷih₃wos (Gothicqius "alive"),tís "who?" <*kʷis (Latinquis).
All remaining labiovelars became labials, originalkʷ kʷʰ gʷ becomingp ph b respectively. That happened to all labiovelars in some dialects like Lesbian; in other dialects, like Attic, it occurred to all labiovelars not converted into dentals. Many occurrences of dentals were later converted into labials by analogy with other forms:bélos "missile",bélemnon "spear, dart" (dialectaldélemnon) by analogy withbállō "I throw (a missile, etc.)",bolḗ "a blow with a missile".
Original PIE labiovelars had still remained as such even before consonants and so became labials also there. In many othercentum languages such asLatin and mostGermanic languages, the labiovelars lost their labialisation before consonants. (Greekpémptos "fifth" <*pénkʷtos; compareOld Latinquinctus.) This makes Greek of particular importance in reconstructing original labiovelars.
The results of vowel contraction were complex from dialect to dialect. Such contractions occur in the inflection of a number of different noun and verb classes and are among the most difficult aspects of Ancient Greek grammar. They were particularly important in the large class ofcontracted verbs, denominative verbs formed from nouns and adjectives ending in a vowel. (In fact, the reflex of contracted verbs inModern Greek, the set of verbs derived fromAncient Greek contracted verbs, represents one of the two main classes of verbs in that language.)
Morphology
Nouns
Proto-Greek preserved the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, dual, plural) distinctions of the nominal system of Proto-Indo-European.[55] However, the evidence from Mycenaean Greek is inconclusive with regard to whether all eight cases continued to see complete usage, but this is more secure for the five standard cases of Classical Greek (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative) and probably also the instrumental in its usual plural suffix -pʰi and the variant /-ṓis/ for o-stem nouns.[53] The ablative and locative are uncertain; at the time of Mycenaean texts they may have been undergoing a merger with the genitive and dative respectively.[53] It is thought that the syncretism between cases proceeded faster for the plural,[53] with dative and locative already merged as-si (the Proto-Indo-European locative plural having been*-su-).[56][53] This merger may have been motivated by analogy to the locative singular-i-.[53] Nevertheless, seven case distinctions are securely attested in Mycenaean in some domain, with the status of the ablative unclear.[57]
Significant developments attributed to the Proto-Greek period include:
the replacement of PIE nominative plural*-ās and*-ōs by*-ai and*-oi.[53]
the genitive and dative dual suffix*-oi(i)n (Arcadian-oiun) appears to be exclusive to Greek.[53]
Genitive singular Proto-Indo-European*-āsyo, if reconstructed as such, is reflected as-āo[53]
The Proto-Greek nominal system is thought to have included cases of gender change according to number, heteroclisy and stem alternation (ex. genitive formhúdatos forhúdōr "water").[53]
The superlative in-tatos becomes productive.[citation needed]
The peculiar oblique stemgunaik- "women", attested from theThebes tablets is probably Proto-Greek. It appears, at least asgunai- inArmenian as well.[citation needed]
Proto-Greek inherited the augment, a prefixe-, to verbal forms expressing past tense. That feature is shared only with Indo-Iranian and Phrygian (and to some extent,Armenian), lending some support to a "Graeco-Aryan" or "Inner Proto-Indo-European" proto-dialect. However, the augment down to the time of Homer remained optional and was probably little more than a free sentence particle, meaning'previously' in Proto-Indo-European, which may easily have been lost by most other branches. Greek, Phrygian,[contradictory] and Indo-Iranian also concur in the absence ofr-endings in themiddle voice, in Greek apparently already lost in Proto-Greek.
The first person middle verbal desinences-mai,-mān replace-ai,-a. The third singularphérei is an innovation by analogy, replacing the expected Doric*phéreti, Ionic*phéresi (from PIE*bʰéreti).
The future tense is created, including a future passive as well as an aorist passive.
The suffix-ka- is attached to some perfects and aorists.
^abcGeorgiev 1981, p. 156: "The Proto-Greek region included Epirus, approximately up to Αὐλών in the north including Paravaia, Tymphaia, Athamania, Dolopia, Amphilochia, and Acarnania), west and north Thessaly (Hestiaiotis, Perrhaibia, Tripolis, and Pieria), i. e. more or less the territory of contemporary northwestern Greece)."
^A comprehensive overview is in J. T. Hooker'sMycenaean Greece (Hooker 1976, Chapter 2: "Before the Mycenaean Age", pp. 11–33 and passim); for a different hypothesis excluding massive migrations and favoring an autochthonous scenario, see Colin Renfrew's "Problems in the General Correlation of Archaeological and Linguistic Strata in Prehistoric Greece: The Model of Autochthonous Origin" (Renfrew 1973, pp. 263–276, especially p. 267) inBronze Age Migrations by R. A. Crossland and A. Birchall, eds. (1973).
^Renfrew 2003, p. 35: "Greek The fragmentation of the Balkan Proto-Indo-European Sprachbund of phase II around 3000BC led gradually in the succeeding centuries to the much clearer definition of the languages of the constituent sub-regions."
^Filos 2014, p. 175: "The emergence of Proto-Greek happened during a long, continuous linguistic process which involved numerous changes in all major linguistic fields (→ phonology, morphology, → syntax, lexicon), as a migrating population of (soon-to-become) Greek speakers were en route to/on the outskirts of Greece, i.e., somewhere to the north(-west) of the Greek peninsula proper. But Proto-Greek was practically formed after the arrival of its speakers in Greece and their merger with pre-Greek populations (→ Pre-Greek Languages; → Pre-Greek Substrate), as is indicated, inter alia, by the high number of loanwords (e.g. sûkon 'fig') and suffixes (e.g. -nthos, -s(s)os/-ttos) which were borrowed into Proto-Greek (see (6), (7) below)."
^Katona 2000, p. 84: "The time of the departure of the Proto-Greeks semel is mid EH II (2400/2300 B.C) (L and A available). Their route between Ukraine and Greece can be supposed to have led through Rumania and East Balkans towards the Hebros-vallev (North-Eastern Greece). Here they turned to the West (A available)."
^Katona 2000, pp. 84–86: "Contacts must have existed, too, until 1900 B.C., when Western tribes lived in Epirus, Southwest Illyria and Western Macedonia, i.e. in the western neighborhood of the Ionians... The main body of the Proto-Greeks – as seen already in Sakellariou 1980 – had settled in southwest Illyria, Epirus, Western Macedonia, and northwestern Thessaly."
^Georgiev 1981, p. 192: "Late Neolithic Period: in northwestern Greece the Proto-Greek language had already been formed: this is the original home of the Greeks."
^Mallory, J.P. (2003)."The Homeland of the Indo-Europeans". In Blench, Roger; Spriggs, Matthew (eds.).Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations. Routledge. p. 101.ISBN1-134-82877-2.Archived from the original on 2023-03-26. Retrieved2020-08-20.
^van Beek 2022b, pp. 189–190: "In sum, the most likely scenario is as follows (see the tentative tree inFigure 11.1). In the first centuries of the second millennium, Proto-Greek was undifferentiated, although there was no doubt some variation, as well as affinities with other Balkan languages.37 Around 1700, South Greek-speaking tribes penetrated into Boeotia, Attica, and the Peloponnese, while North Greek was spoken roughly in Thessaly, parts of Central Greece, and further North and West (up to Epirus, and perhaps also Macedonia). During the early Mycenaean period, South Greek diverged by the assibilation of *ti, the simplification of word-internal *ts and *ss, and a number of morphological innovations.37Scholars often date the immigration into the Peloponnese to the end of the third millennium, but I would prefer a later date coinciding with the beginning of Late Helladic, in the seventeenth century BCE (cf. Hajnal 2005). This would fit the linguistic data best, as reconstructible differences between South Greek and North Greek in the late Mycenaean period are relatively small."
^Benjamin W. Fortson IV (2004).Indo-European Language and Culture. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 226.
^Ramón, José Luis García (2017). "The morphology of Greek". In Klein, Joseph and Fritz (2017),Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Page 654.
Renfrew, Colin (2003). "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European: 'Old Europe' as a PIE Linguistic Area". In Bammesberger, Alfred; Vennemann, Theo (eds.).Languages in Prehistoric Europe. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter GmBH. pp. 17–48.ISBN978-3-82-531449-1.Archived from the original on 2023-03-26. Retrieved2016-04-15.
Woodard, Roger D. (1997).Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek Literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-510520-6.
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