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.[3] The characteristically Greek representation of word-initiallaryngeals byprothetic vowels is shared, for one, by 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.[4]
Estimates for the introduction of the Proto-Greek language into prehistoric Greece have changed over the course of the 20th century. Since the decipherment ofLinear B, searches were made "for earlier breaks in the continuity of the material record that might represent the 'coming of the Greeks'".[5] A Middle Bronze Age estimate, originally presented by C. Haley and J. Blegen in 1928, was altered to an estimate spanning the transition fromEarly Helladic II toEarly Helladic III (c. 2400 – c. 2200/2100 BCE).[5] However, the latter estimate, accepted by the majority of scholars,[6][7] was criticized by John E. Coleman as being based on stratigraphic discontinuities atLerna that other archaeological excavations in Greece demonstrated were the product of chronological gaps or separate deposit-sequencing instead of cultural changes.[8]
In modern scholarship, different settlement models have been proposed regarding the development of Proto-Greek speakers in the Greek peninsula.[9]
Paul Heggarty et al. (2023), advancing a mixed steppe-farmer model of Indo-European origins viaBayesian statistics, places Greek south of the Caucasus as an already diverged branch of Indo-European at around 7000 years before present (c. 5000 BCE).[10]
Panayiotis Filos (2014) states that the termProto-Greek "does not necessarily refer to a fully homogeneous Indo-European language of the (late) Early/Middle Bronze periods (ca. 2200/2000-1700 BCE, but estimates vary)".[11] He argues that Proto-Greek developed "during a long, continuous linguistic process [...], 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" and amalgamating with Pre-Greek speakers."[11]
Radoslav Katičić (2012|1976) states that the lack of any traces of pre-Greek toponymy in Epirus and western Thessaly makes the region the most probable concentration site of Greek-speakers at around c. 1950 BC before their descent southwards.[12]
Nancy Demand (2012) argues that speakers of what would become Proto-Greekmigrated from theirhomeland (which could have been northeast of theBlack Sea) throughout Europe and reached Greece in a date set around the transition of the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age.[13]
David Anthony (2010) argues that Proto-Greek emerged from the diversification of theProto-Indo-European language (PIE), the last phase of which gave rise to the later language families having occurred inc. 2500 BCE;[14] its formation in Greece occurred during the beginning and end of the Early Helladic III period (~2200–2000 BC).[15] Specifically, Pre-Proto-Greek, the Indo-European dialect from which Proto-Greek originated, emergedc. 2400 – c. 2200 BCE 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.[16]
Asko Parpola and Christian Carpelan (2005) date the arrival of Proto-Greek speakers from the Eurasian steppe into the Greek peninsula to 2200 BCE.[9]
John E. Coleman (2000) estimates that the entry of Proto-Greek speakers into the Greek peninsula occurred during the late 4th millennium BC (c. 3200BC) withpre-Greek spoken by the inhabitants of the Late Neolithic II period.[17]
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and Vjaceslav V. Ivanov (1995) date the separation of Greek from the Greek-Armenian-Aryan clade of Proto-Indo-European to around the 3rd millennium BCE.[20] The Greek clade afterwards split into independently developed dialects (i.e., eastern: Arcado-Cyprian, Aeolic, Ionic; western: Doric) during the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.[20]
An older model by Bulgarian linguistVladimir I. Georgiev (1981) placed Proto-Greek in northwestern Greece and adjacent areas (approximately up to Aulon river to the north includingParauaea,Tymphaia,Athamania,Dolopia, Amphilochia, and Acarnania as well as west and north Thessaly (Histiaeotis,Perrhaibia,Tripolis) andPieria inMacedonia during the Late Neolithic period.[24][25][26] 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 place-names.[24] 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 in Neolithic Greece.[27][14]
Hypothetical Proto-Greek area of settlement (2200/2100–1900 BC) suggested by Katona (2000), Sakellariou (2016, 1980, 1975) and Phylaktopoulos (1975).
View of "Proto-Greek area" in the 3rd millennium BCE, reconstructed byVladimir I. Georgiev (1973 and 1981). The boundaries are based on the high concentration of archaic Greek place-names in the region in contrast to southern Greece which preserves many pre-Greek ones.[15][24][28]
Ivo Hajnal dates the beginning of the diversification of Proto-Greek into the subsequent Greek dialects to a point not significantly earlier than 1700BC.[1] 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.[29][30][31][32]
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).[36] 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 argues for a "probable"[36] early loss of final non-nasal[37] 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.[36] However, it appears that these stops were preserved word finally for unstressed words, reflected inek "out of".[37]
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:[38]
*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.
Devoicing of voiced aspirates *bʰ, *dʰ, *ɡʰ, *ɡʷʰ to *pʰ, *tʰ, *kʰ, *kʷʰ.[36] 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[37] 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.[36]
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.
Consonants followed by consonantal*y werepalatalized, producing variousaffricate consonants (still represented as a separate sound in Mycenaean) andgeminated palatal consonants.[36] 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.
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.[39]
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.[40] 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.[40] 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.[40]
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).[40]
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,[41] 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.[42]
The resulting palatal consonants and clusters of Proto-Greek were resolved in varying ways prior to the historical period.[42]
Proto-Greek
Homeric
Attic
West Ionic
Other Ionic
Boeotian, Cretan
Arcadian
Cypriot
Lesbian, Thessalian
Other
*pť
pt
*t͡s
final,[43] initial, after*n,[44] after long vowel or diphthong[45]
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.[54] 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'.[53] The merger with*sd was probably post-Mycenaean, but occurred before the introduction of the Greek alphabet.[55]
In Proto-Greek, Cowgill's law[56] states that a former/o/ vowel becomes/u/ between aresonant (/r/,/l/,/m/,/n/) and alabial consonant (includinglabiovelars), in either order.[57] Examples include:[57]
Proto-Greek retained the Indo-Europeanpitch accent, but developed a number of rules governing it:[58]
* 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.[59] 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.[58]
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.
[[Digamma#Classical Greek|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.[60] 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.)
Proto-Greek preserved the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, dual, plural) distinctions of the nominal system of Proto-Indo-European.[61] 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.[58] 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.[58] It is thought that the syncretism between cases proceeded faster for the plural,[58] with dative and locative already merged as-si (the Proto-Indo-European locative plural having been*-su-.[62])[58] This merger may have been motivated by analogy to the locative singular-i-.[58] Nevertheless, seven case distinctions are securely attested in Mycenaean in some domain, with the status of the ablative unclear.[63]
Significant developments attributed to the Proto-Greek period include:
the replacement of PIE nominative plural*-ās and*-ōs by*-ai and*-oi.[58]
the genitive and dative dual suffix*-oi(i)n (Arcadian-oiun) appears to be exclusive to Greek.[58]
the genitive singular Proto-Indo-European*-āsyo, if reconstructed as such, is reflected as-āo.[58]
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").[58]
The peculiar oblique stemgunaik- ("women"), attested from theThebes tablets, is probably Proto-Greek.
Proto-Greek inherited the augment, a prefixe-, to verbal forms expressing past tense.[64] 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, 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.[65] The future passive paradigm in Ancient Greek was marked by a suffix-θή- (-thḗ-), which may relate to the Proto-Indo-European suffix*dʰ-.[66] The aorist passive in-ή- (-ḗ-) ("ἐχάρην," "ekhárēn") may have emerged from the Proto-Indo-European stative morpheme*-eh₁, with aorist passives in-θή- developing as a later innovation.[67]
The suffix-ka- is attached to some perfects and aorists.
^abcHajnal 2007, p. 136 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHajnal2007 (help).
^A comprehensive overview is in Oliver Dickinson's "The Coming of the Greeks and All That" (Dickinson 2016, pp. 3–21), J. T. Hooker'sMycenaean Greece (Hooker 1976, Chapter 2: "Before the Mycenaean Age", pp. 11–33 and passim), and in Bryan Feuer's annotated bibliography (Feuer 2004); 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."
^Meier-Brügger 2017, p. 697 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMeier-Brügger2017 (help); citing Strunk 85–98, Panagl 99–103, and Lindner 105–108 inBammesberger & Vennemann 2003 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBammesbergerVennemann2003 (help).
^West 1997, p. 1: "[T]he majority view for the last twenty or thirty years has been that the arrival of the proto-Greek-speakers is signalled archaeologically by two waves of destruction which took place at various sites in central and southern Greece at the beginning and end of the Early Helladic III period. These waves seem now to be flattening out under critical scrutiny."
^Katona 2000, p. 84: "The time of the departure of the Proto-Greekssemel is mid EH II (2400/2300B.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-valley (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."
^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)."
^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."
^Georgiev 1973, p. 248: "Thus in the region defined just above, roughly northern and north-western Greece, one finds only archaic Greek place-names. Consequently, this is the proto-Hellenic area, the early homeland of the Greeks where they lived before they invaded central and southern Greece."
^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."
^Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1995, p. 318: "Presumably of similar origin are the augmented verb forms of the early Indo-European languges. The prefixal augment *e- is the result of fusion of sentence-initial *e/*o with an immediately following verb: Gk.é-phere, Skt.á-bharat 'brought', Arm.e-ber, etc.".
Dickinson, Oliver (December 1999). "Invasion, Migration and the Shaft Graves".Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.43 (1):97–107.doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00480.x.
Egetmeyer, Markus (2010).Le dialecte grec ancien de Chypre (in French). Berlin: De Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-021752-0.
Gamkrelidze, Thomas V.; Ivanov, Vjaceslav V. (1995).Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.ISBN31-108-1503-6.
Littauer, M. A.; Crouwel, J.H. (1996). "Robert Drews and the Role of Chariotry in Bronze Age Greece".Oxford Journal of Archaeology.15 (3):297–305.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.1996.tb00087.x.
Parpola, Asko; Carpelan, Christian (2005). "The Cultural Counterparts to Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan: Matching the Dispersal and Contact Patterns in the Linguistic and Archaeological Record". In Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie L. (eds.).The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. New York: Routledge. pp. 107–141.ISBN9780700714636.
Rau, Jeremy (2010). "Greek and Proto-Indo-European". In Bakker, Egbert J. (ed.).A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Wiley-Blackwel (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.). pp. 171–188.ISBN978-1-4443-1740-4.
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.
Weiss, Michael (2010). "Morphology and Word Formation". In Bakker, Egbert J. (ed.).A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.). pp. 104–119.ISBN978-1-4443-1740-4.
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. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-510520-6.
Mallory, J. P.; Adams, J. Q. (2006).The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-929668-5.
Category
![View of "Proto-Greek area" in the 3rd millennium BCE, reconstructed by Vladimir I. Georgiev (1973 and 1981). The boundaries are based on the high concentration of archaic Greek place-names in the region in contrast to southern Greece which preserves many pre-Greek ones.[15][24][28]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aProto_Greek_Area_reconstruction.png)
