Augment (Indo-European)
Template:Short description The augment is an Indo-European verbal prefix used in Indo-Iranian, Greek, Phrygian, Armenian, and Albanian, to indicate past time.<ref name=Augment2022>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb.</ref> The augment might be either a Proto-Indo-European archaic feature lost elsewhere or a common innovation in those languages.<ref name=Augment2022/> In the oldest attested daughter languages, such as Vedic Sanskrit and early Greek, it is used optionally. The same verb forms when used without the augment are referred to as injunctive forms (because of one of their attested senses).<ref name=FortsonAug>Fortson, §5.44.</ref><ref name=BurrowAug>Burrow, pp. 303-304.</ref><ref name=ClacksonAug>Clackson, p. 123.</ref>
The augment originally appears to have been a separate word, with the potential meaning of 'there, then', which in time got fused to the verb. The augment is Template:Lang in PIE (Template:Tlit in Greek, Template:Tlit in Sanskrit) and always bears the accent.<ref name=FortsonAug>Fortson, §5.44.</ref><ref name=BurrowAug>Burrow, pp. 303-304.</ref>
Greek
The predominant scholarly view on the prehistory of the augment is that it was originally a separate grammatical particle, although dissenting opinions have occasionally been voiced.<ref>Andreas Willi (2018) Origins of the Greek verb, Chapter 7 - The Augment, pp. 357-416, Online publication date January 2018, Cambridge University Press, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108164207.008</ref>
Homeric Greek
In Homer, past-tense (aorist or imperfect) verbs appeared both with and without an augment.
Ancient Greek
In Ancient Greek, the verb Template:Wikt-lang Template:Tlit "I say" has the aorist Template:Lang Template:Tlit "I said." The initial Template:Lang Template:Tlit is the augment. When it comes before a consonant, it is called the "syllabic augment" because it adds a syllable. Sometimes the syllabic augment appears before a vowel because the initial consonant of the verbal root (usually digamma) was lost:<ref>Herbert Weir Smyth. Greek Grammar. par. 429: syllabic augment.</ref>
- *έ-ϝιδον *é-widon → (loss of digamma) *ἔιδον *éidon → (synaeresis) εἶδον eîdon
When the augment is added before a vowel, the augment and the vowel are contracted and the vowel becomes long: Template:Wikt-lang Template:Tlit "I hear", Template:Lang Template:Tlit "I heard". It is sometimes called the "temporal augment" because it increases the time needed to pronounce the vowel.<ref>Smyth. par. 435: temporal augment.</ref>
Modern Greek
Unaccented syllabic augment disappeared in some dialects during the Byzantine period as a result of the loss of unstressed initial syllables, this feature being inherited by Standard Modern Greek. However, accented syllabic augments have remained in place.<ref>Browning, Robert (1983). Medieval and Modern Greek (p58).</ref> So Ancient Template:Lang (Template:Tlit) "I loosened, we loosened" corresponds to Modern Template:Lang (Template:Tlit).<ref>Sophroniou, S.A. Modern Greek. Teach Yourself Books, 1962, Sevenoaks, p79.</ref> When the stem begins in a vowel, the augment has not survived in the vernacular and the vowel is left unaltered instead: Ancient Template:Lang (Template:Tlit) "I love, I loved"; Modern Template:Lang (Template:Tlit).
Sanskrit
Template:See also The augment is used in Sanskrit to form the imperfect, aorist, pluperfectTemplate:Efn and conditional. When the verb has a prefix, the augment always sits between the prefix and the root.<ref>Burrow, p. 303.</ref> The following examples of verb forms in the third-person singular illustrate the phenomenon:
| √bhū-Template:Efn | sam + √bhū-Template:Efn | |
|---|---|---|
| Present | bháv·a·ti | sam·bháv·a·ti |
| Imperfect | á·bhav·a·t | sam·á·bhav·a·t |
| Aorist | á·bhū·t | sam·á·bhū·t |
| Conditional | á·bhav·iṣya·t | sam·á·bhav·iṣya·t |
When the root starts with any of the vowels i-, u- or ṛ, the vowel is subject not to guṇa but vṛddhi.<ref>Burrow, §7.5.</ref><ref>Whitney, §585.</ref>
- icch·á·ti -> aí·cch·a·t
- urṇó·ti -> aú·rṇo·t
- ṛdh·nó·ti -> ā́r·dh·no·t
Other
- Phrygian seems to have had an augment.
- Classical Armenian had an augment,<ref>Clackson, James. 1994. The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. London: Publications of the Philological Society, No 30. (and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)</ref> in the form of e-.
- Yaghnobi, an East Iranian language spoken in Tajikistan, has an augment.
Constructed languages
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Quenya, the repetition of the first vowel before the perfect (for instance Template:Lang, perfect tense of Template:Lang, "come") is reminiscent of the Indo-European augment in both form and function, and is referred to by the same name in Tolkien's grammar of the language.