The augment is an Indo-European verbal prefix used in Indo-Iranian, Greek, Phrygian, Armenian, and Albanian, to indicate past time.[1] The augment might be either a Proto-Indo-European archaic feature lost elsewhere or a common innovation in those languages.[1] 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 carry an injunctive sense.[2] [3] [4]
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 in PIE (é- in Greek, á- in Sanskrit) and always bears the accent.[5] [6]
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.[7]
In Homer, past-tense (aorist or imperfect) verbs appeared both with and without an augment.
In Ancient Greek, the verb λέγω légo "I say" has the aorist ἔλεξα élexa "I said." The initial ε e 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:[8]
When the augment is added before a vowel, the augment and the vowel are contracted and the vowel becomes long: ἀκούω akoúō "I hear", ἤκουσα ḗkousa "I heard". It is sometimes called the "temporal augment" because it increases the time needed to pronounce the vowel.[9]
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.[10] So Ancient ἔλυσα, ἐλύσαμεν (élūsa, elū́samen) "I loosened, we loosened" corresponds to Modern έλυσα, λύσαμε (élisa, lísame).[11] The temporal augment has not survived in the vernacular, which leaves the initial vowel unaltered: Ancient ἀγαπῶ, ἠγάπησα (agapô, ēgápēsa) "I love, I loved"; Modern αγαπώ, αγάπησα (agapó, agápisa).
The augment is used in Sanskrit to form the imperfect, aorist, pluperfect and conditional. When the verb has a prefix, the augment always sits between the prefix and the root.[12] The following examples of verb forms in the third-person singular illustrate the phenomenon:
| √bhū- | sam + √bhū- | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 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.[13] [14]
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Quenya, the repetition of the first vowel before the perfect (for instance utúlië, perfect tense of túlë, "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.