OudgrieksStudent

Proto-Hellenic inflections

I've removed the inflections because they are very ad-hoc, and not always correct either. Firstly, there should be templates for the verbs, like in other languages, rather than having tables directly in the entries. Secondly, the forms don't all seem correct to me:

• Proto-Hellenic didn't have a compulsory augment yet, as Homer still leaves off the augment in some cases.
• The change of s > h occurred only next to voiced sounds. Forms like *ekírnāht and *ekírnāhte shouldn't have existed, the s would have been preserved. In the other direction, *esmen and *esenti would have been *ehmen and *ehenti.
• Forms like *ekírnāhnt and *epʰugnt have completely impossible consonant clusters. Syllabic sonorants are resolved into a schwa, so -hət and -gət would be more likely.
• Did Proto-Hellenic still preserve final -t? It's not there in Classical Greek, so if it's not there in early forms of Greek either, it was probably lost in Proto-Hellenic already.
• The change of final m > n would have applied to *epʰérom.

—Rua (mew) 15:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright. I myself am trying to learn more about the Proto-Greek language and the lack of resources bothers me. So i've been trying to create a template from the scarce amount of resources i've found.

Obviously, you seem to know way more than me. Do you have any possible resources?

-OudgrieksStudent (user talk:OudgrieksStudent) 17:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC+1)

The source you used isn't bad per se, but it's not really complete as you noticed. I can see about creating a basic table template that can be used for Proto-Hellenic verbs. However, Ancient Greek verbs are quite complicated, and have lots of forms. φεύγω (pheúgō) has a whole slew of separate tables for example, each with separate forms. I wonder how to present all of this information. Personally, I'm not a fan of the horizontal layout of the Ancient Greek tables, and would rather list 2nd person below 1st person etc.

Then there's the question of the forms themselves. Many of these would have been present in PH, as they are inherited from PIE, but not all forms are of PIE date. The perfect mediopassive is an innovation for example, PIE had no such thing. So then we have to ask whether these forms were already present in Proto-Hellenic, or were created after. The same applies to losses as well. PIE had an aorist mediopassive (e.g. *dḗyḱst), but Ancient Greek apparently no longer did, so did it disappear in the time before PH or after it?

And finally, accentuation. I know very little of the rules of how PIE accentuation developed in Greek. I do recall reading that verb forms were basically unaccented in the precursor to Greek, and acquired some sort of default recessive accent. Again, how much of that process was already complete when PH was spoken? Do PH and attested Greek verbs preserve any of the PIE accent? —Rua (mew) 16:16, 18 April 2020 (UTC)