Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek refers to the stage in the history of the Greek language corresponding to Classical Antiquity, which normally applies on two ancient periods of Greek history: Archaic and Classic Greece. The Ancient era of Greek history normally includes also the Hellenistic (post-Classic) age, however that period formally composes its own stage in the Greek Language known as Hellenistic Greek. For information on the Greek language prior to the creation of the Greek alphabet, see articles Mycenaean Greek and Proto-Greek.

Erasmian Morphophonology

Consonant classes

There are three main classes of consonants:

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• Stops. This include three subclasses: velars (k, g, kh), labials (p, b, ph), and dentals (t, d, th).
• Sonorants are m, n, l, r.
• Fricatives are s and h.

Consonant contractions

In verb conjugation, one consonant often comes up against the other. Various sandhi effects smooth these out.

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Rules:

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• Most basic rule: When two sounds appear next to each other, the first assimilates in voicing and aspiration to the second.
• This applies fully to stops. Fricatives assimilate only in voicing, sonorants don't assimilate.
• Before an s (future, aorist stem), velars become k, labials p, and dentals disappear.
• Before a th (aorist passive stem), velars become kh, labials ph, dentals s.
• Before an m (perfect middle first-singular, first-plural, participle), velars become g, nasal+velar becomes g, labials m, dentals and n become s, other sonants remain.

Compensatory lengthening

Note that there are different schemes for compensatory lengthening, depending on where it happens. The differences are in whether a becomes ? or ?, and whether e and o become the closed values ei /e?/ and ou /o?/ or the open values ? /??/ and ? /??/.

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Augment

The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least) a prefix /e-/. This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist).

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There are two kinds of augment in Greek, syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r, however, add er). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel:

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• a, ?, e, ? -> ?
• i, ? -> ?
• o, ? -> ?
• u, ? -> ?
• ai -> ?i
• ei -> ?i or ei
• oi -> ?i
• au -> ?u or au
• eu -> ?u or eu
• ou -> ou

Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e -> ei.

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The augment is sometimes omitted in poetry (Epic Greek).

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The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below.

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Reduplication

All forms of the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. There are three types of reduplication:

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• Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning with a single consonant, or a cluster of a stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting of the initial consonant followed by e. An aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates in its unaspirated equivalent: this is often referred to as Grassman's Law.
• Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as those beginning with a cluster other than those indicated previously (and occasionally for a few other verbs) reduplicate in the same fashion as the augment. Note that this remains in all forms of the perfect, not just the indicative.
• Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning with an a, e or o, followed by a sonorant (or occasionally d or g), reduplicate by adding a syllable consisting of the initial vowel and following consonant, and lengthening the following vowel. Hence er -> er?r, an -> an?n, ol -> ol?l, ed -> ed?d. This is not actually specific to Attic Greek, despite its name. This originally involved reduplicating a cluster consisting of a laryngeal and sonorant; hence h?l -> h?leh?l -> ol?l with normal Greek development of laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were analogous.)

Sometimes reduplication is irregular, for historical reasons. Hence lamban? (root lab) has the perfect stem eil?pha (not *lel?pha) because it was originally slamban?, with perfect sesl?pha, becoming eil?pha through (semi-)regular change.

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