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Abstract Verba sentiendi, verbs of perception, refer to physical and/or mental perception: ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘taste’, ‘perceive’, ‘learn’, etc. Many derive from roots with a general meaning, ‘perceive by the senses’, later moving to a specific sense. Their plentiful occurrence and central position at all stages of Greek provide an avenue for tracking changes in lexicon, syntax and semantics. Verba sentiendi, ‘verbs of perception’, are those which refer to physical and/or mental perception: blépō ‘see, have the power of sight’ , horáō ‘see’, theáomai ‘gaze on, look at’, akoúō ‘hear’, ak…

Abstract Verbs of speaking (verba dicendi) are among the most prominent and plentiful lexemes in the literature of Ancient Greece, reflecting the high esteem in which the power of speech was held in the largely oral Indo-European culture. Because of their common occurrence and central position through all periods of the language, verbs of speaking provide an opportunity to track changes in the lexical nuances and semantics of the verbs themselves, whereas the syntactic changes may also be observed in the subordinate structures which follow these verbs in ‘reported speech’. Verba dic…

Abstract The augment is an inflectional verbal prefix associated with past tense and occurring in the indicative of the aorist, imperfect and pluperfect. It is limited in its distribution in the IE family, occurring only in Greek, the Indo-Aryan languages, Iranian, Armenian and Phrygian, suggesting a (late) common innovation in this sub-group. It was in origin an adverb or deictic particle meaning ‘there’ or ‘yonder’, extended metaphorically to refer to distance in time, rather than space. The au…

Abstract ‘Narten’ presents (both active and middle) are athematic root forms whose accent remains on the root throughout the paradigm, which displays lengthened/full-grade alternation. This phenomenon was described by Johanna Narten in 1968 and is named in her honor. In her seminal 1968 paper, Johanna Narten studied a specific type of Proto-Indo-Europeanroot present(Present Tense). The formation she described gained the name ‘Narten presents’ in her honor. As characteristics of this present formation are intimately connected to ablaut patterns, reference to ‘Narten ablaut’ …

Abstract The discovery of the Hittite imperial archives early in the 20th c. provided copious evidence of the extensive links between Bronze Age Greece and Anatolia. Anatolian influence affected virtually every aspect of life in the Aegean region, including trade and technology, population diffusion, religious ritual and observance, poetic tradition, warfare, even athletics. An extensive body of multidisciplinary scholarship has arisen over the last hundred years to address the nature and extent …