Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in O = 254 + 36/Total = 290

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in O = 254 + 36/Total = 290

In this post we find derived (D) infinitives in O. Here is the table of derived (D) thematic and athematic infinitives starting with the Greek letter O in Mycenaean Greek:



Be absolutely sure to read the extensive NOTES I have composed for the vowel O, as  there a a number of issues surrounding this vowel (O).

We are also introducing the middle voice, which never appears on any extant Linear B tablet. This voice exists only in Greek (ancient and modern), a centum (Occidental) and Sanskrit, a satim (Oriental) language. Greek and Sanskrit are essentially the Western and Eastern versions of the same proto-Indo-European language from which they both derive. Hence, the middle voice exists in both these languages, but in scarcely any other language in the world, ancient or modern.

But what is the middle voice? The middle voice is essentially self-referential, meaning that the person(s) any middle voice verb represents is or are acting of his or their own accord or in her or their own interest or that they are actively involved in the action the verb signifies. The middle voice is also used in reflexive verbs, such as dunamai, oduromai, onomai etc. etc., whereas the present indicative is found in Greek verbs such as oarizein, odaien, hodeuein = Mycenaean oarize, odaie, odeue. It is not the same thing as the present indicative, which is much simpler. Ancient and modern Greek both contain thousands of middle voice verbs, probably as many as thematic verbs, of which the infinitive always ends in ein in Greek and e in Mycenaean. READ ALL of the NOTES in the chart of Mycenaean verbs in O. Otherwise, what I am explaining here will not make much sense.  The complete conjugation of middle voice verbs in Mycenaean Linear B appears in the chart above.     

The 4 sentences following Greek verbs in O make it perfectly clear that we are dealing with natural Mycenaean Greek as it was actually spoken. Note that the natural plural in OI is to found in spoken Mycenaean, rather than the singular in O we find almost (but not always) exclusively on the extant Linear B tablets.

It was highly likely anyway that official documents, poetry (if any) and religious texts were written in natural Mycenaean Greek on papyrus. However, the moist climate of Crete and the Greek mainland meant that papyrus, unlike in the arid climate of Egypt, was doomed to rot away. So we shall never really know whether or not there were documents in natural Mycenaean Greek. But my educated hunch is that there were.

The total number of natural Mycenaean Greek derived (D) infinitives we have posted so far = 290.

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