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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Homeric k-aorists and/or k-perfects?

subject

description

In classical Greek the aorist indicatives of dído:mi, je:mi, and títhe:mi end in -ka, -kas, -ke following a long vowel in the singular. Homeric Greek utilizes k-forms, both augmented and non-augmented, of these three verbs, and attests to third person plural forms ending in -kan and even to a first person plural form such as êne:kamen. There is a broad consensus regarding these forms as typical of Greek, while their relation to the k-perfect is still discussed. The paper considers the -k- to have a phonetic origin deriving from a laryngeal root,viz from *h1 or *h3, when they come into contact with *h2,the laryngeal of *-h2e, the ancient first person singular ending of the original perfect. Close analysis of certain passages from the Homeric poems exhibiting non-augmented k-forms of dído:mi, je:mi, and títhe:mi shows that these three k-formations may have originally pertained to the perfect as far as their meaning is concerned. The clashing forms that are nevertheless found in Homeric poems can be explained by considering that the cantos of the Iliad and the Odyssey go back to a period of linguistic transition impacting the morphological expression of time. The new had already begun but it had not yet completely supplanted the old.