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Abstract The formation of the present stem in Ancient Greek follows to a large extent the formative patterns of the parent language of Indo-European, i.e.,  ablaut of radical vowel, affixation (suffixation or infixation), reduplication, and suppletion. These different processes may not be historically contemporaneous with one another in all languages, but they are all well documented and, to varied degrees, used in all or most languages. Greek enriches this inheritance by creating a large number …

Need for an Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics (EAGLL) Brill has initiated a series of encyclopedic works on languages and their linguistic description. Thus far two such works have been published, the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (in 5 volumes; 2006-2009), and the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (which appeared in 2013 in four volumes). The third work in the series is the present Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics. The EAGLL is published in a hard-copy print version (in 3 volumes) and in an elec…

Abstract Among the movable consonants in Ancient Greek a special case is word-initial s-, due to the fact that in etymologically cognate word sets some items have this s- and others lack it. Despite the various explanations offered so far none seems to be entirely satisfactory. The phonotactics of root structure of Indo-European allows roots of the shape sCV, e.g. PIE *speḱ-/*spoḱ- ‘to see, watch’, as in Lat. speciō ‘I look at’, Av. spasiieiti ‘(s)he/it looks at’, Skt. causative spāśáyate ‘(s)he/it shows’, OHG spehōn ‘watcher’ (cf. Eng. spy) and Gk. sképtomai ‘I see, think’ and skopéō ‘I …

Abstract Reduplication is the repetition of all or part of a word form, creating either a two-word complex or, most commonly, a new form of the word. For Ancient Greek, reduplication belongs to the sphere of derivational and inflectional morphology: new words or new grammatical forms of the same word are created. In the latter case, reduplication has been fully grammaticalized, and this is what we will be concerned with in this article. 1. Definition Reduplication is the repetition of all or part of a word form, creating either a two-word complex or, most commonly, a new form of the word. In Ind…

Abstract Reduplication is a common formative mechanism encompassing the whole system of language, nominal, verbal, and otherwise. For Indo-European languages in particular verbal reduplication is a characteristic feature utilized in the stem formation of the present system, the aorist system and the perfect system. In the present system there are several formative types that employ reduplication, namely thematic and athematic, verbs with initial vowel, verbs in -(i)sḱe/o-, verbs with ‘internal’ reduplication, etc. Greek attests all these types of reduplicative…

Abstract Poets, bards, seers, and other craftsmen of the word have traditionally been one distinct class of people endowed with special skills and enjoying a high social esteem and recognition. This position is even more conspicuous in preliterate societies in which the poets functioned, so to say, as the archivists of the past and as the custodians of tradition. In Indo-European societies, poetic craft was considered a special art and was highly valued. Studying the language and culture of the a…

Abstract As a member of the Indo-European family of languages, Greek shares a number of inherited features with other languages of the family, but it also shows many developments which are characteristic of Greek alone or of a particular group of languages. This entry offers a discussion of the evolution of the hypothesized PIE grammatical system in Ancient Greek. 1. Introduction Greek is a member of the Indo-European (henceforth IE) language family, i.e., of a group of related languages that include Indic, Old Iranian, Tocharian, Armenian, Anatolian (e.g. Hittite, Luvian, etc.), Slav…

In principle, Greek words are given only in transliterated form, sometimes in phonetic transcription as well. Greek characters are used only if it is absolutely necessary, e.g. in quotes from inscriptions, in entries dealing with issues of phonetics, writing and the like. More specifically, in the entries on inscriptions, sometimes the Greek script is used (but not consistently) followed by transliteration within slashes or square brackets in roman type; the same goes for Mycenaean: the usual transliteration in italics, followed by transcription in roman type, e.g. qa-si-re-u [gʷ…