Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in R = Greek = 423

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in R = Greek = 423:

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




It is absolutely de rigueur to read the NOTES on Mycenaean versus ancient archaic Greek orthography in the chart above. Otherwise, the Linear B sentences will not make any sense.

It was highly likely 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 = 423.

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Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in I = 18/Total = 114

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in I = 18/Total = 114

In this post we find 18 derived (D) infinitives in I in natural Mycenaean Greek.

Here is the table of attested thematic and athematic infinitives starting with the Greek letter I in Mycenaean Greek:



It is absolutely essential to read the 2 Notes [1] and [2] in the table above, since they explain critical differences between ancient archaic Greek and Mycenaean Linear B orthography of the same verbs (or any words, for that matter).

The 4 sentences 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 is also highly likely 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 = 24 A + 12 D + 35 E + 25 Z, EI, TH + 18 I for a TOTAL of 114. I shall indicate the running total as we proceed through the alphabet.

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in E = 35

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in E = 35

In this post we find 35 derived (D) infinitives in E in natural Mycenaean Greek.

Here is the table of attested thematic and athematic infinitives starting with the Greek letter E in Mycenaean Greek:



The 4 sentences in E 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. See infinitives in D for a further explanation for this phenomenon.

It is also highly likely 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 = 24 A + 12 D + 35 E for a TOTAL of 71. I shall indicate the running total as we proceed through the alphabet.

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in D = 12

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Derived (D) Verbs/Infinitives in D = 12:

In this post we find 12 derived (D) infinitives in natural Mycenaean Greek.

Here is the table of attested thematic and athematic infinitives starting with the Greek letter D in Mycenaean Greek:



The 4 sentences after the 12 verbs in D make it absolutely clear that we are dealing with natural Mycenaean Greek as it was actually spoken. It is also highly likely 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.

Thematic Verbs:

Active Voice:

These are the so-called standard verbs, which are by far the most common in all ancient Greek dialects. Thematic verbs are sub-classed into three voices, active, middle and passive.

Middle Voice:

The middle voice is unique to ancient Greek, and is self-referential, by which we mean the subject acts upon him- or herself or of his or her own volition. The middle voice also includes reflexive verbs. I am posting the first person singular of verbs in the middle voice, as it is far more common than the infinitive.

Athematic Verbs:

Athematic verbs are far less common than thematic, but they are the most ancient of ancient Greek verbs. They have already appeared completely intact by the time Mycenaean Greek has entrenched itself. The Mycenaean conjugations of athematic verbs are very similar, and in some cases identical to, their conjugations in much later Ionic and Attic Greek, and must therefore be considered the root and stem of the same class of verbs in later classical Greek. The fact that athematic verbs were already fully developed by the era of Mycenaean Greek is a strong indicator that the Mycenaean dialect is not proto-Greek, but the first fully operative ancient East Greek dialect. We shall demonstrate over and over that Mycenaean Greek was the primordial fully functional East Greek dialect which was to be adopted and adapted by the later East Greek dialects (Ionic and Attic among others). I am posting the first person singular of athematic verbs, as it is far more common than the infinitive.

The reconstruction of natural language Mycenaean grammar by means of the methodology of progressive grammar is to be the subject of my fourth article in the prestigious international journal, Archaeology and Science, Vol. 13 (2017). The concept of progressive grammar is actually quite easy to grasp. It merely designates the reconstruction of natural, as opposed to inventorial, Mycenaean Greek grammar from the ground up. By the time I have finished with this project, I shall have reconstructed a huge cross-section of natural Mycenaean grammar, approaching the grammar of later East Greek dialects in its comprehensiveness.

NOTES:
[1]There are two (2) verbs in the middle voice under D. These are dekomai and dunamai.
[2] There are no athematic MI verbs under D.
[3]In the natural Mycenaean Greek language, the nominative masculine plural always ends in oi, e.g. tosoi. This is in contrast to the formalized, fossilized Greek of Linear B inventories, which very rarely give any words in the nominative masculine plural. Instead, the extant Linear B tablets simply give the words in the singular, e.g. toso.
[4]In the natural Mycenaean Greek language, the nominative feminine plural always ends in ai, e.g. heketai (which is actually a masculine noun with feminine endings). This is in contrast to the formalized, fossilized Greek of Linear B inventories, which very rarely give any words in the nominative masculine plural. Instead, the extant Linear B tablets simply give the words in the singular, e.g. heketa.

There are exceptions to attested plurals on the tablets. The nominative masculine plural of teo (god) is teoi, exactly as it appears in natural Mycenaean Greek. This is because the word teo is not a word found in inventories, but rather in religious texts, mimicking the natural language. It is the template upon which the nominative masculine plural of all words in natural Mycenaean Greek is formed.  

The total number of natural Mycenaean Greek derived (D) infinitives we have posted so far = 24 A + 12 D for a TOTAL of 36. I shall indicate the running total as we proceed through the alphabet.

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Verbs/Infinitives:

Mycenaean Linear B Progressive Grammar: Verbs/Infinitives:

As of this post, we shall be reconstructing natural Mycenaean Linear B grammar from the ground up. When I refer to natural Mycenaean Linear B, I mean not merely the Linear B extant grammatical forms in the standardized, formulaic and fossilized language of inventories which we encounter on extant Linear B tablets, but grammatical forms common to the entire natural, spoken language. While we do not have any direct evidence of the syntactical construction of the spoken language, we can nevertheless largely reconstruct grammatical forms in natural Mycenaean Greek.  Such reconstructed forms are referred to as derived.

In this post, we introduce attested Mycenaean Linear B infinitives only, i.e. those which are found on extant tablets. In the next post, we shall feature a considerable number of derived infinitives, which are nowhere to be found on the extant tablets, but which nevertheless can be reconstructed with relative ease.

Linear B verbs, just as all verbs in every East Greek dialect down from Mycenaean to early and late Ionic and Attic, among other dialects, are classified as follows:

Thematic Verbs:

These are the so-called standard verbs, which are by far the most common in all ancient Greek dialects. Thematic verbs are sub-classed into three voices, active, middle and passive. The middle voice is unique to ancient Greek, and is self-referential, by which we mean the subject acts upon him- or herself or of his or her own volition. The middle voice also includes reflexive verbs.

Athematic Verbs:

Athematic verbs are far less common than thematic, but they are the most ancient of ancient Greek verbs. They have already appeared completely intact by the time Mycenaean Greek has entrenched itself. The Mycenaean conjugations of athematic verbs are very similar, and in some cases identical to, their conjugations in much later Ionic and Attic Greek, and must therefore be considered the root and stem of the same class of verbs in later classical Greek. The fact that athematic verbs were already fully developed by the era of Mycenaean Greek is a strong indicator that the Mycenaean dialect is not proto-Greek, but the first fully operative ancient East Greek dialect. We shall demonstrate over and over that Mycenaean Greek was the primordial fully functional East Greek dialect which was to be adopted and adapted by the later East Greek dialects (Ionic and Attic among others).

The reconstruction of natural language Mycenaean grammar by means of the methodology of progressive grammar is to be the subject of my fourth article in the prestigious international journal, Archaeology and Science, Vol. 13 (2017). The concept of progressive grammar is actually quite easy to grasp. It merely designates the reconstruction of natural, as opposed to inventorial, Mycenaean Greek grammar from the ground up. By the time I have finished with this project, I shall have reconstructed a huge cross-section of natural Mycenaean grammar, approaching the grammar of later East Greek dialects in its comprehensiveness.

Here is the table of attested thematic and athematic infinitives in Mycenaean Greek:

Conjugations in the present Active and Middle voices of 9 common Mycenaean Greek verbs in Linear B

Conjugations in the present active and middle of 9 common Greek verbs in Linear B:

Introduction: we now take the Theory of Progressive Linear B one step further, by illustrating its eminently successful application to the Greek Middle Voice in the present tense.  This is the one and only conjugation in Linear B which remains fully intact, and as such it fundamentally serves  to validate the Theory of Progressive Linear B Grammar, and it does so nicely, thank you very much.  For those of you who are not familiar with ancient Greek, I suggest once again that it is probably better for your sanity not to read this post, as it discusses the minutiae of one of the most convoluted grammatical concepts in Greek, ancient or modern, the function of the Middle Voice, which unless you already know Greek, is so maddeningly difficult to get a handle on that is probably not worth your trouble.  But I know that, regardless of what I say, some of you more adventurous “curious cats” will storm right ahead anyway… and who can blame you for that? If you do manage a basic understanding of the notion of the Middle Voice, all the more power to you.  In fact, leave me a comment bragging about your marvelous feat.  It took me three months (!) to really get a  grip on the Middle Voice when I first learned Greek.  Finally, one day the light came on, I shouted the proverbial “EUREKA!”, and ever since then there’s been no looking back !  Anyway, here is the table of conjugations of the present tense of 9 of the most common verbs in Mycenaean Linear B, one of which just so happens to be in the Middle Voice, either a disaster or a blessing, depending.  So why not give it yourself a shot? Here we go! CLICK to ENLARGE:

I offer up another of my typically copious and convoluted “notes” (much like the labyrinth of Knossos) for your entertainment, enlightenment or nervous breakdown, as the case may be.  A bit of humour never hurt anyone, eh?  I know it practically drove me mad to compile them in the first place.  So here we go again! CLICK to ENLARGE:

Richard