Acta Ant. Hung.

44, 2004, 143–150

MÁTÉ ITTZÉS

THE AUGMENT IN MYCENAEAN GREEK1

GREEK TT

Summary: This paper is meant to show that the widely accepted theory of the augment being completely
absent in Mycenaean Greek is untenable. There is one example in the linear B documents in which the
presence of the syllabic augment is undoubtful and two more in which it is probable. The lack or pres-
ence of the augment cannot be regarded as a dialectal feature in the sense of E. Risch’s distinction be-
tween mycénien normal and mycénien spécial. The augment is a morphological innovation of a group of
Indo-European languages, which was still spreading at the time of the documents and its rare occurrence
can be regarded as one of the features that characterize Mycenaean as “a milestone between Indo-Euro-
pean and Historical Greek” (O. Szemerényi).
Key words: Mycenaean Greek, linear B documents, augment, dialectal differences in Mycenaean.

The decipherment of the linear B documents dating from the 14–13th centuries
B.C. at the beginning of the 1950s put new life and vigour into Greek historical lin-
guistics. For, in many respects, the Greek dialect of these documents, Mycenaean
Greek, constitutes a transitional phase between Proto-Indo-European and the Ancient
Greek of the first millennium B.C. This holds true in spite of the fact that Mycenaean
can neither be considered as a kind of Proto-Greek language, from which all the his-
torical dialects of the first millennium originated, nor is it the ancestor of any par-
ticular dialect, though it is clear that it has the most in common with Arcadian and
Cyprian.2
The transitional character of Mycenaean3 can be illustrated with the example of
the labiovelars. While these sounds had formed a separate group in the Proto-Indo-
European phoneme inventory, they disappeared in Ancient Greek and changed to

1
Abbreviations used in the text: LIV2: Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Die Wurzeln und
ihre Primärstammbildungen. Ed. H. RIX et al. Zweite, erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. Wiesbaden
20012; GEW: FRISK, H.: Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch I–III. Heidelberg 1960–1972; DELG:
CHANTRAINE, P.: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque I–IV. Paris 1968–1980.
2
On the dialectal position of Mycenaean see A. BARTONĚK’s recently published Handbuch des
mykenischen Griechisch. Heidelberg 2003, 446–497 (with bibliographical references to the latest litera-
ture on the subject).
3
Cf. also SZEMERÉNYI, O.: Mycenaean: A milestone between Indo-European and Historical
Greek. In Atti e memorie del 1º Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia, Roma 27 Settembre – 3 Ot-
tobre 1967, II. Roma, 715–725 [Incunabula Graeca vol. XXV, 2].

0044-5975 / 20.00 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

144 ITTZÉS, MÁTÉ

dental, labial or velar phonemes.4 In Mycenaean they still retain their status as pho-
nemes, but the weakening of this status is clearly indicated by the fact that after and
before /u/ we find only a velar /k/ instead of the labiovelar /ku;/: e.g. <qo-u-ko-ro> PY
An 18 etc. = /gu;ou;kolos/ (Gr. boukÒloj) < *gu;ou;-ku;olos (root *ku;elh1, LIV2: 386–
387).5 In the field of nominal inflection the occurrence of case syncretism can be
pointed out. As it is well known, out of the eight cases of Proto-Indo-European we
find only five in Ancient Greek, while in Mycenaean, there still exists an independ-
ent instrumental case in some inflectional types, although the syncretism of dative
and locative had already taken place for the most part. Its ending is <-pi> = /-phi/,
which reappears in Homer later, but by that time its orginial function had already be-
come obsolete and was used merely as a general suffix for any oblique case.6
Because of their registrational or enumerative character the linear B documents
offer much less information about verbal inflection than about the nominal. For in-
stance, one can find only 3rd person verbal forms in Mycenaean, and from among the
moods it is only the indicative that appears with absolute certainty.7 In this paper
I am dealing with a small segment of verbal morphology, namely the problem of the
augment in the Mycenaean documents.
The preterite, i.e. aorist (and imperfect, if any) verb forms of Mycenaean usu-
ally do not exhibit the syllabic augment, the prefix e-. We find forms such as <do-
ke> KN Ws 1707 dōke; <a-pu-do-ke> KN X 681 apudōke; <te-ke> PY Ta 711 thēke;
<qi-ri-ja-to> KN B 822 kwri(j)ato (Attic pri-), etc. Since the spelling of linear B does
not distinguish between long and short vowels, it is impossible to mark the temporal
augment in writing, so we have to confine ourselves to cases where a syllabic aug-
ment might occur.
It is in this context that a Pylian tablet (PY Fr 1184)8 has become widely dis-
cussed, on which, in the opinion of many scholars, a clear example of syllabic aug-
ment can be found.
1 ko-ka-ro a-pe-do-ke e-ra3-wo to-so
2 e-u-me-de-i OLE + WE 18
3 pa-ro i-pe-se-wa ka-ra-re-we 38
4 vacat
Kōkalos apedōke elaiwon tos(s)on E(h)umēde(h)i: OLE + WE 18. Paro
Ipsewāi khlārēwes 38.

4
See e.g. LEJEUNE, M.: Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien. Paris 1972, 43–
53; RIX, H.: Historische Grammatik des Griechischen. Laut- und Formenlehre. Darmstadt 1976, 85–88.
5
See e.g. BARTONĔK: op. cit. (n. 2) 479.
6
Cf. RIX: op. cit. (n. 4) 115–116 and 158–159; BARTONĔK: op. cit. (n. 2) 465.
7
See BARTONĚK: op. cit. (n. 2) 324–328.
8
First published by BENNETT, E. L.: The Olive Oil Tablets of Pylos. Texts of Inscriptions found
1955. Seminario de Filologia Clasica, Universidas de Salamanca 1958, 40–41 [Suplementos a “Minos”
Núm. 2]; see also BENNETT, E. L.– OLIVIER, J.-P.: The Pylos Tablets Transcribed I. Roma 1973, 155
[Incunabula Graeca vol. LI]; VENTRIS, M.– CHADWICK, J.: Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge
19732, 481 (No. 305); BARTONĚK: op. cit. (n. 2) 516. About the interpretation of the tablet and the Fr-se-
ries in general see recently SACCONI, A.: Le tavolette Fr dello Scriba 2 e la preparazione degli oli profu-
mati a Pilo. Kadmos 35 (1996) 23–38.

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 THE AUGMENT IN MYCENAEAN GREEK 145

The verb form in question can be found in line 1: <a-pe-do-ke>, which might
be interpreted as a 3rd person singular aorist indicative of the verb apudidōmi (with
the preverb apu- instead of Attic ¢po-). The first sentence of the text can be trans-
lated as follows: ‘Kokalos gave / delivered this much oil to Eumedes: 18 units of oil
of the WE-type’.
It has been repeatedly suggested that in spite of appearances we have to do with
an unaugmented verb form even in this case. According to the theory of S. Luria9 the
form <a-pe-do-ke> does not correspond to /apedōke/, but rather to /apesdōke/, in
which we would encounter the dialectal variant ™j/™s- of the preverb (and preposi-
tion) ™k/™x(-).10 The Attic counterpart of this form would then be the unaugmented
¢pškdwke.
In view of the rules of Mycenaean orthography and phonology the suggestion
cannot be objected to, because there are many other examples where the phoneme /s/
is unnoted at the end of a closed syllable.11 On the other hand, it should be borne in
mind that verbs with two prepositional prefixes are extremely rare (maybe non-
existent) in Mycenaean, while the verb apudidōmi and other words related to it occur
rather frequently, and also in similar contexts.12 This circumstance makes it probable
that also in this particular case the verb in question is apudidōmi, and <a-pe-do-ke>
must be interpreted as /apedōke/, not /apesdōke/.
M. Petruševski argued similarly in favour of the lack of an augment in <a-pe-
do-ke>.13 He thought that a particular feature of the “Pylian dialect” (not exactly
specified by him) was at issue, namely an alternation of /u/ and /e/, which is the reason
for /ape-/ appearing instead of /apu-/. As mentioned above, the members of the lexi-
cal group of apudidōmi occur in many cases in the linear B documents. The fact that
the supposed sound alternation does not appear in any of these occurrences (e.g. there
is no †<a-pe-do-si> apedosis, just <a-pu-do-si> apudosis etc.) does not support the
theory very much, but it can neither be ruled out solely on this ground. It is more im-

19
LURIA, S.: Zu den neugefundenen pylischen Inschriften (1955–1958). PP 15 (1960) 241–259;
accepted positively by e.g. HOENIGSWALD, H. M.: Mycenaean Augments and the Language of Poetry. In
Mycenaean Studies. Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies, Wing-
spread, 1961. Ed. E. L. BENNETT. Madison 1961, 179–182; SCHMITT, R.: Zwei Bemerkungen zum Aug-
ment. KZ 81 (1967) 65–67; HILLER, S.– PANAGL, O.: Die frühgriechischen Texte aus mykenischer Zeit.
Zur Erforschung der Linear B-Tafeln. Darmstadt 1976, 87 [Erträge der Forschung, Band 49].
10
E.g. Arcad. ™j to‹ (= Attic ™k toà), ™sdšllontej (= Attic ™kb£llontej), ™sper©sai (= Attic
™k-); Cret. ™sklhs…a. In Cyprian, another dialect closely related to Mycenaean, the forms ™j/™s- do not
occur. See BUCK, C. D.: The Greek Dialects. Grammar, Selected Inscriptions, Glossary. Chicago 19552,
83–84.
11
E.g. <pa-ka-na> /phasgana/; <ti-ri-po-di-ko> /tripodiskoi/; possibly <a-pe-ti-ra2>, if it really is
/amphestr(i)ja/; many nominative singular forms (with /s/ in word-final positions): e.g. <ka-ke-u> /khal-
keus/. On the other hand we can find e.g. <do-so-mo> /dosmos/ (and not †<do-mo>).
12
E.g. <a-pu-do-ke> apudōke KN X 408, 681; <a-pu-do-si> apudosis KN Fh 340, 349, Ga 421,
Og 424, L 728, PY Ma 222, Wr 1457; <a-pu-do-so[-mo?]> apudosmos KN Fh 0484 etc. See CHAD-
WICK, J.– BAUMBACH, L.: The Mycenaean Greek Vocabulary. Glotta 41 (1963) 185. On the verb didōmi
in Mycenaean see DUHOUX, Y.: Le groupe lexical de d…dwmi en mycénien. Minos 9 (1968) 81–108.
13
PETRUŠEVSKI, M.: L’alternance vocalique u:e du dialect mycénien de Pylos. In Studia Myce-
naea. Proceedings of the Mycenaean Symposium Brno April 1966. Ed. A. BARTONĚK. Brno 1968, 53–
57 (summing up the arguments he put in forward his previous articles in Živa Antika 8 (1958) 236, 240
and 294; 10 (1960) 324).

Acta Ant. Hung. 44, 2004

146 ITTZÉS, MÁTÉ

portant that none of the arguments14 advanced by Petruševski in favour of the theory
holds good in the light of closer examination. Now I will discuss briefly only three of
these arguments.
The first one is the case of <po-ro-e-ke-te-ri-ja> on the tablet PY Ta 709, which
is regarded by Petruševski as proekkhetēria (instead of proekkhutēria) ‘a kitchen
utensil used for pouring liquid out’ (cf. proekcšw). First, the unusual appearance of
two preverbs makes this equation problematic, too. Secondly, also has to be borne in
mind a form with a very similar second part, namely <to-no-e-ke-te-ri-jo> PY Fr
1222.15 Though because of the spelling rules of linear B the possibility remains that
in the case of the two second members we have to do with mere homonyms or homo-
graphs, it is nonetheless probable that both contain the same stem, to which a suffix
-tēria is added in the first word and -tērion in the second.
The latter <to-no-e-ke-te-ri-jo> is, in all probability, the name of a feast, where
oil was used for some ritual purpose. The most likely interpretation16 traces it back to
thorno- and -helktēriōi (dative singular) or -helktēriōn (genitive plural). The second
member is a derivative of the verb ›lkw, the counterpart of Proto-Indo-European
*selk ‘to draw’ (cf. LIV2: 530–531), the first member is either thornos (cf. e.g. PY Ta
707) ‘throne’ (Bennett) or *thornon, a noun with the meaning ‘peplos with embroi-
dery, decorative garment’ (Promponas) reconstructed on the basis of certain Homeric
passages.17 The name of the feast may then be ‘the drawing of the throne’ or, perhaps
more likely, ‘the drawing up of the peplos’. This might be a festival where a peplos
with decorative embroidery was offered to the goddess (or rather two goddesses, as
perhaps the dual <wa-na-so-i> wanas(s)o(j)in on the tablet seems to suggest).

14
Petruševski’s assumptions are: 1. <a-pe-te-me-ne> PY Ta 709 = /apethmene/, which corre-
sponds to normal ¢pÚqmene (du.) ‘(vessels) without a bottom/an under side (pÚqmhn)’; 2. <po-ro-e-ke-
te-ri-ja> PY Ta 709 = /proekkhetēria/, instead of /-ekkhu-/, ‘a kind of household utensil for pouring liquid
out’; 3. <ko-te-ri-ja> PY Ta 709 = /koteli(j)a/, a variant of the standard kotÚlia ‘small vessel, cup’;
4. alternation of the singular dative forms <pa-ra-ke-we> PY Ta 642 ~ <pa-ra-ku-we> PY Ta 714, 715;
5. numerous later forms from different Greek dialects, which show an apparent u ~ e alternation: e.g. ÑxÚa
~ Ñxša ‘beech’; qšlemnon ~ qšlumnon ‘foundation, base’; sšrfoj ~ sÚrfoj ‘a small winged insect’;
ptšon ~ ptÚon ‘winnowing-shovel, fan’; kellÒj (viz. kell£j: monÒfqalmoj Hésych.) ~ kullÒj ‘club-
footed, deformed’; kÚ(g)cramoj ~ kš(g)cramoj ‘a bird that migrates with quails’; kèdu(i)a ~ kède(i)a
‘head of a poppy’; ¢gui£/ ‘highway, street’ (in an intransitive meaning ‘what leads somewhere’ from
¥gw) ~ *¢gei£/ (> lat. agēa ‘a gangway leading to the oars on a ship’ Enn. ann. 492) etc.
15
First published by BENNETT: op. cit. (n. 8) 52–53; see also VENTRIS – CHADWICK: op. cit.
(n. 8) 482.
16
PROMPONAS, I. K.: `H Mukhnai*k¾ `Eort¾ *Qronoelkt»ria (to-no-e-ke-te-ri-jo) kaˆ ¹ ™pi-
b…wsij aÙtÁj e„j toÝj ƒstorikoÝj crÒnouj. Athens 1974 and BENNETT: op. cit. (n. 8) 52–53 (with a
slight difference in the second member). Other interpretations are e.g. thorno-hektērion ‘the holding of
the throne’ VENTRIS – CHADWICK: op. cit. (n. 8) 482; stono-egertērion ‘the raising of lamentation’
PALMER, L. R.: The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts. Oxford 1963, 252; throno-enkheutērion
‘Fest der Spenden am Thron’ HILLER, S.: Wanasoi tonoeketerijo. Minos 10 (1969) 78 and HILLER –
PANAGL: op. cit. (n. 9) 312.
17
E.g. crusÒqronoj “Hrh Il. 1. 611; ™äqronon 'Hî Il. 8. 565 etc. According to Promponas, and
contrary to the communis opinio, these adjectives mean ‘with peplos of gold’ and not ‘with throne of
gold’ etc. (cf. the plurale tantum qrÒna ‘embroidery, flowers embroidered on cloth’ in Homer, e.g. Il. 22.
441: ™n d qrÒna poik…l' œpassen). For an opposite view see E. RISCH: qrÒnoj, qrÒna und die Kom-
posita vom Typus crusÒqronoj. Studii Clasice 14 (1972) 17–25.

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 THE AUGMENT IN MYCENAEAN GREEK 147

If the identity of the stems in the two compunds is accepted, a plausible solu-
tion can be arrived at in the case of <po-ro-e-ke-te-ri-ja>, too. It might then be inter-
preted as pro-helktēri(j)ā, i.e. a kitchen utensil used for drawing forth or scooping
out something.18 This meaning would suit the context of the Pylian Ta-series, i.e. the
registration of household utensils and could make a good match for the ideogram
beside the word on the tablet, which can be explained as showing a kind of ladle or a
little scoop or shovel.
The pairs of later Greek words brought up by Petruševski in favour of a hypo-
thetical spontaneous /u/ ~ /e/ alternation are in great part highly problematic or simply
do not support his theory. I will now briefly refer to four of them. Out of the two
forms ¢germÒj ~ ¢gurmÒj ‘collection, gathering’ the latter has nil-grade and exhibits
the special reflex /ur/ of the sonant liquid *r (< *h2gr-mó- from the root *h2ger ‘to col-
(^) (^)

lect, gather’, cf. LIV2: 276), while the former is plausibly interpreted as having an
analogically restored full grade (*h2ger-mó-), which is clearly the result of a morpho-
(^)

nological process and not of a sound change or sound alternation. The same can be
said about the pair kÚrtoj ‘fish-trap, bird-cage’ ~ kertÚllion ‘basket’, the latter
being a hapax legomenon (PFlor. 176, 9). The words derive from PIE *kert ‘to twist,
spin’ (LIV2: 356; cf. OInd. √krt, kr~atti ‘to twist, spin’) and show ablaut-differences,
the latter exhibiting the reflex of the full grade form *kert-, the former the special de-
velopment of the nil-grade form *krt-o- (cf. OInd. [< Prakrit] kata ‘mat’, OHG hurt
‘hurdle’). There also exists a word with the regular reflex /ar/ of the sonant liquid in
the nil-grade, i.e. k£rtalloj ‘basket with pointed bottom’. As far as the pair ÑxÚa ~
Ñxša ‘beech’ is concerned, Ñxša seems to be the result of an analogous adjusment to
other words of the same semantic field, e.g. „tša ‘willow’, mhlša ‘apple-tree’ etc.19
The pair e„resiènh ~ e„rusiènh ‘branch of olive or laurel wound round with wool
and hung with fruits, dedicated to Apollo’ also fails to prove the theory. Although the
etymology of the words is not entirely clear, it seems to be fairly probable that the
former variant is the original form, while the latter is due to popular etymology,
which connected the word to the verb ™rÚomai/e„rÚomai ‘to protect’.20
As far as the singular dative forms <pa-ra-ke-we> PY Ta 642.1 ~ <pa-ra-ku-
we> PY Ta 714.1, 715.3 are concerned, they do not represent a sound alternation,
either. Even though we have difficulty in determining exactly the lexeme behind these
series of graphemes, it seems sure that the two forms derive from an u-stem noun or
adjective. U-stems in Mycenaean regularly have a paradigm without stem-vowel ab-
laut (i.e. nom. sg. *-u-s, gen. sg. *-u;-os, dat. sg. *-u;-ei;, as opposed to the pattern with
ablaut: nom. sg. *-u-s, gen. sg. *-eu;-os, dat. sg. *-eu;-ei;).21 In the light of this we are
to regard <pa-ra-ke-we> and <pa-ra-ku-we> as spelling variants of one and the same
word-form ending /-k(h)u;ei ;/, a situation similar to what we can see in the case of the
personal name /Widwojjos/ (<wi-do-wo-i-jo> e.g. PY Ae 344 ~ <wi-du-wo-i-jo>

18
See already PALMER: op. cit. (n. 16) 342.
19
GEW II: 400; DELG: 806.
20
See GEW I: 466; DELG: 323–324.
21
VILBORG, E.: A Tentative Grammar of Mycenaean Greek. Göteborg 1960, 92–93. Cf. SZEME-
RÉNYI, O.: Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford 1999, 175–179.

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148 ITTZÉS, MÁTÉ

PY Jn 415 ~ <wi-dwo-i-jo> PY Ep 539) or the numeral ‘two’ (<dwo> e.g. PY Eb

338 ~ <du-wo-u-pi> e.g. PY Ep 613).
The refutation of the theories described above supports the view that <a-pe-do-
ke> /apedōke/ is in fact an augmented aorist indicative. Moreover, there are other
forms in the documents which could perhaps be treated as augmented preterites.22
The form <a-pe-e-ke> occurs three times (lines 2, 5, 7) on the tablet PY An 724
[+32] (ll. 1-4: ro-o-wa e-re-ta a-pe-o-te / me-nu-wa a-pe-e-ke a-re-sa-ni-e / o-pi-ke-
ri-jo-de ki-ti-ta o-pe-ro-ta [[e]] / e-re-e VIR1). Although the interpretation of this
text is, as in many cases, highly controversial, it is possible that <a-pe-e-ke> should
be taken as a 3rd person singular aorist indicative of the verb aphiēmi : ‘send away,
:
dispatch’ (from PIE *(H)i;eh1, LIV2: 225; *ap-e-(H)i;eh1-k-e-t > *apē jēke > *apē hēke
myk. <a-pe-e-ke>) and equated with Homeric ¢fšhke, alphabetic Greek ¢fÁke.
This seems to be confirmed by the occurrences of unaugmented <-e-ke>, i.e. -hēke
(<a-pi-e-ke> amphi-hēke PY Un 2; <e-pe-ke> ep-hēke KN Dl 932).
There is another form of the same verb that might contain an augment, namely
<e-e-to> PY An 607 (line 3: MUL 6 do-qe-ja do-e-ra e-qe-ta-i e-e-to), which could
be interpreted as a: 3rd person: plural middle aorist indicative with a passive meaning:
‘were sent’ (i.e. /ē hento/ < *ē jento < *e-(H)ih1-nto, cf. Attic eŒnto). Though the con-
text is obscure again, we can identify nominative plurals (e.g. woman slaves) beside
the verb as possible subjects, while <e-qe-ta-i> is plausibly interpreted as /heku;etā(h)i/,
the plural dative of hekwetās ‘follower, companion (of the wanax?)’ (cf. ›pomai <
PIE *seku;, ˜pštaj Pi. P. 5,4) the latter functioning as an indirect object syntactically
(i.e. ‘woman slaves were sent to the hepetas’).
The tables in Antonin Bartonĕk’s recent handbook of Mycenaean Greek show
that among the 1330 appellatives occurring on the linear B tablets there are alto-
gether 31 finite verb forms that could potentially be augmented. It is only half of
them that can be regarded as more or less unambiguous, while with the others the
specification of either the lexeme or the concrete word form is problematic. It is then
possible that the proportion of augmented verb forms is much greater than it is usu-
ally thought: 3 out of 31, i.e. 10 per cent. This picture is totally different from the dra-
matic and astonishing statement supported by many that Mycenaean has only one, if
any, augmented verb form. We cannot therefore simply exclude the augment from
the linear B documents and Mycenaean in general as it has been done recently, e.g.
by Bartonĕk: “Im Prinzip kommt man also im Mykenishcen ohne Augment aus.”23
Our task is more of an effort to explain the relatively rare occurrence of the augment.
One theoretically possible answer to this question would be if we could define
the use or the lack of the augment as a dialectal feature within Mycenaean itself. It is
well known that on the basis of certain peculiarities in the Pylian documents Ernst
Risch was able to make a distinction within Mycenaean, a relatively uniform cancel-
larial idiom, between two strata, mycénien normal, i.e. standard Mycenaean, and

22
Cf. DUNKEL, G.: Mycenaean and Central Greek. Kadmos 20 (1981) 140.
23
BARTONĔK: op. cit. (n. 2) 337.

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 THE AUGMENT IN MYCENAEAN GREEK 149

mycénien spécial, i.e. substandard Mycenaean.24 The most important three differ-
ences between the two strata are the following: 1. The ending of the singular dative
of consonant stems is /-ei ;/ (<-e>) in mycénien normal, but /-i/, the ending of the
original locative,
: in mycénien spécial: e.g. <po-se-da-o-ne> PY : Es 646, Fr 1224
/Posei;dā(h)ō nei;/ ~ <po-se-da-o-ni> PY Un 718 /Posei;dā(h)ō ni/. 2. The reflex of
sonant nasals beside labials is /o/ in the former, but /a/ in the latter: e.g. <pe-mo> PY
Eb 846, En 467 etc. /spermo/ ~ <pe-ma> PY Er 312, Er 880 /sperma/ < *sper-mn0
‘seed’ (PIE *sper ‘spread, sow’ LIV2: 580). 3. In a couple of words /i/ appears before
labials in the former, /e/ in the latter: e.g. <ti-mi-ti-ja> PY Jo 438 /Thimistia/ ~ <te-
mi-ti-ja> PY On 300 /Themistia/. We can find substandard features in the documents
whenever a scribe could not entirely adjust to the standard usage and unconsciously
let the peculiarities of his own dialectal background appear in the texts. From among
the dialects of the first millennium B.C. Arcadian and Cyprian are closer to mycénien
normal, Ionic and Attic to mycénien spécial.
We will need to examine the dialectal peculiarities of the scribes of those tab-
lets that have been considered as possibly having augmented preterite forms, i.e. PY
Fr 1184 and An 607, 724. The attribution of Pylian tablets to hands or scribes has
already been carried out with great reliability by Bennett and Palaima,25 according to
which Fr 1184 can certainly be attributed to Hand 2, An 607 and 724 to Hand 1. As
it was already recognized by Risch,26 Hand 2 shows the peculiarities of mycénien
normal, though it is true that in the Fr-series, which is the most closely connected
with Fr 1184, the tablet bearing <a-pe-do-ke>, only the singular dative of consonant
stems occurs out of the three mentioned-above distinctive features. More specifically,
we find only the ending -ei in these documents.27 Or, to be more precise, there is a
dative with ending -i in line 2 on tablet Fr 1184, but it is a noun with an s-stem. The
inflection of the s-stems is different from that of the other consonant stems in as
much as they use the originally locative ending in mycénien normal as well, although
datives with the original ending -ei also occur.28 The tablets of the An-series of Hand
1 do not exhibit substandard features either, though in other series written by the
same scribes they occur rarely, however. Therefore, since the use of the augment
does not combine significantly with the substandard peculiarities listed before, we
need to reject the possibility that it could be a manifestation of this dialectal stratum.
24
First of all RISCH, E.: Les différences dialectales dans le mycénien. In Cambridge Colloquium of
Mycenaean Studies 1965. Cambridge 1966, 150–157 (= Kleine Schriften. Edd. ETTER, A.– LOOSER, M.
Berlin – New York 1981, 451–458) and Die griechischen Dialekte im 2. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend. SMEA
20 (1979) 91–111 (= Kleine Schriften 269–289). Cf. also BARTONĔK: op. cit. (n. 2) 454–457, 462–463.
25
BENNETT, E. L.: Tentative Identification of the Hands of the Scribes of the Pylos Tablets. In
Atti del 2º Colloquio Internazionale di Studi Minoico-Micenei, Pavia, 1–5 IX 1958. Athenaeum 46 [N.
S. 36] (1958) 328–331; BENNETT, E. L.– OLIVIER, J.-P.: The Pylos Tablets Transcribed II. Roma 1976
[Incunabula Graeca vol. LII] and with slight modifications of Bennett’s methods PALAIMA, T. G.: The
Scribes of Pylos. Roma 1988 [Incunabula Graeca vol. LXXXVII].
26
RISCH: op. cit. (n. 24) 111.
27
The forms in question are the following: <ma-te-re> PY Fr 1202 mātrei; <wa-na-ka-te> PY Fr
1220, 1227, 1235 wanaktei; <po-se-da-o-ne> Fr 1224 Poseidā(h)ō@nei, and perhaps <e-re-de> Fr 1228,
too, which might be the dative of a personal name, though a place-name with the suffix -de is also con-
ceivable. Cf. VENTRIS–CHADWICK: op. cit (n. 6) 545; BENNETT: op. cit (n. 8) 58.
28
Cf. BARTONĔK: op. cit (n. 2) 270; VILBORG: op. cit (n. 21) 86.

Acta Ant. Hung. 44, 2004

150 ITTZÉS, MÁTÉ

Many scholars have tried to explain the hypothetical, and, as we saw, unprov-
able, lack of augment in Mycenaean. According to a theory, it could be the reappear-
ance of a feature of the Proto-Indo-European poetic language, i.e. the optional use of
the augment.29 This will appear highly problematic immediately, if we think of the
fact that the Mycenaean documents are written in prose. Others think that we have to
do here with the memorative use of the so called injunctive (i.e. verb forms with
secondary endings without any augment), which is known from Vedic and which
never has the augment in Rigvedic texts and would never have it in Mycenaean.30
What we really feel the need to explain is the situation that Mycenaean does
have the augment, but uses it quite rarely in the linear B documents. Our encounter-
ing mostly aorists among preterite forms on the tablets (imperfects in just two doubt-
ful cases) is understandable if we bear in mind that these documents register or list
facts, data or events without any aspectual specification. On the other hand, the rare
appearance of the augment can also be accounted for. This prefix, which introduces
verb forms having secondary endings with precise references to the past, was not part
of the common Proto-Indo-European verbal morphology. It was a more recent inno-
vation of the Indo-Iranian–Greek–Armenian–Phrygian dialectal group, which appeared
not much earlier than the split of the group itself. As all language-related innovations,
the augment spread gradually and gained ground definitively only during the history
of the individual languages. This is attested to by the fact that in their first records (the
Rigveda and the Homeric epic) the prefix is not a compulsory morpheme in the past
tenses.
It seems clear that the augment first became compulsory in such cases where
the verb form described events or actions in which the reference to the past was espe-
cially important, while in those where the main point was simply mention being
made of them it appeared only later. In Mycenaean we can see a transitory phase of
this process, a state of language where the innovation has spread only to a quite lim-
ited sphere of usage. In aorists, only ‘mentioning’ events, the augment is generally ab-
sent, but in some cases it appears even in that tense. It would be interesting to know
how far the process has already advanced in the spoken language or in what percent-
age the scribes, or Mycenaean people in general, used the augment when they were
telling stories or events in which reference to the past was important. Because of the
characteristics of the linear B documents, our only records of the Greek language
from the second millennium B.C., further clarification of the problem seems impossi-
ble for the time being.

Máté Ittzés
Eötvös Loránd University
Department of Indo-European Studies
H–1088 Budapest
Múzeum krt. 6–8/A.
ittzesm@eotvos.elte.hu

29
HOENIGSWALD: op. cit. (n. 9); PALMER, L. R.: Review of “Mycenaean Studies”. Ed. E. L.
BENNETT. Lg 41 (1965) 329.
30
SCHMITT: op. cit. (n. 9) 65–67.

Acta Ant. Hung. 44, 2004