Talk:Augment (Indo-European)

Comment

I added CSBArticles, since the scope of this article is presently limited to Indo-European perspective; augment is a much broader term. I hope to find time to expand the article soon; but don't wait for me! Mark Dingemanse (talk) 10:49, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that the "augment" per se is a technical term in Indo-European linguistics. The article probably could be expanded with a discussion of the difference between augment and reduplication, but I was wondering what other languages you thought shared the feature? I see that someone else has removed your project note; I had no hand in that. Smerdis of Tlön 17:18, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

'Augment' as a term is used in a much broader sense in syntax. Maybe the word really needs a disambig and the creation of an article Augment (syntax) or something like that, instead of expansion. That is the reason I don't care much about the removal of the project note. To tell you about the broader sense, I'd have to look up my sources (e.g. Givon 1984/1990), but it is too late for me now. I'll get back to this. Sorry for leaving in a hurry. Mark Dingemanse (talk) 22:43, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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In German, every past participle begins with ge, such as in gehen (to go) - ging (went) - gegangen (gone) or tuen (to do) - tat (did) - getan (done). Is the ge an augment? If so, German should be added to the "most notably"-list. --Neg 14:11, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that the German prefix is not cognate with the Indo-European augment. It appears on participles rather than preterites, and represents a root that originally formed part of a prepositional verb phrase. Is the German prefix called an augment in English? Smerdis of Tlön 16:14, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't know. That's why I'm asking. But if you say that it's not cognate with the Indo-European augment, and if that's the condition for being called augment (Is it? I don't know.), then German probably doesn't belong here. OK. --Neg 13:04, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ancient vs modern Greek

I find the reference to ancient Greek out of place because it addresses readers with a special kind of education. Modern Greek is a living language that is spoken by 15 million people. Andreas 20:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

• the augment still exists in a few modern Greek verbs (I've listed several in the article).
• Wikipedia covers historical subjects, including earlier forms of languages. κτημα τ'ες αιει... [Thuc. 1.22]
• Anyway, most subjects in Wikipedia require 'a special kind of education' of some kind or another, and what is wrong with that?

m.e. (talk) 12:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Article needs

The article needs:

• section on Prakrits

(Note: the Indic languages lost the aorist and imperfect altogether, so no more augment any more).

I've done some of the work (see the article), but it could do with a bit of work. My Modern Greek grammar is hopelessly out of date as to orthography. (talk) 11:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I've added a comment on section on the loss of the augment in the later evolution of Greek, and also some information on other languages. m.e. (talk) 12:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Irish

My understanding is that Irish does (or at least did), to some extent, have an augment-like feature. Past tenses used to have a do prefix added, although spelled separately of the rest of the word. In modern Irish, it has disappeared from consonant-initial verbs but still occurs as a d' prefix on vowel-initial verbs: (do) tháinig mé (I came) but d'ith mé (I ate), and also d'fhoghlaim mé (I learned) because a lenited initial F fh is silent and a directly following vowel will count as initial in the pronunciation.

Requested move 1 March 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. RM has run for over a month with two relists and there has not developed a firm consensus. A third relist would be unlikely to achieve a clearer consensus, so I am closing this as no consensus with it defaulting to the current stable title. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

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Augment (linguistics) → Augment (Indo-European) – There is also an augment in the Bantu languages, which is completely unrelated other than the name (which was perhaps inspired by the IE augment). The two phenomena should have separate articles, as merely being called "augment" is not enough reason to discuss them all on the same page, as is currently done. CodeCat (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2017 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 09:22, 10 March 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:17, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. I note that the section on Bantu languages is completely unreferenced, but even assuming it's correct, there's no call for more than one article on this. They're similar enough to have this as a broad concept article. But the first thing is to find references for the non-Indo-European section. (And incidentally, are we sure that the rules governing the augment in Bantu are grammatical as the article currently states? It sounds (no pun intended) more likely to be at least partly phonology. I'm sure the sources will tell us.) Andrewa (talk) 09:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support because we do not permit two different topics that just share a similar name to be covered at one article, as a matter of policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:42, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I would support if the section on the Bantu languages was much longer. As it is only two sentences, I agree with Andrewa's points. A non-linguist is more likely to look for either topic using the current general title. A qualified linguist might expect something different, but is not likely to be using WP as a linguistics reference. Jack N. Stock (talk) 07:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Augment (Bantu languages) has now been created. CodeCat (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support as the IE and the Bantu augments are two unrelated phenomena that just happen to be called the same. Noting that the move would entail redirecting Augment (linguistics) to the dab page Augment#Language. Andrewa's suggestion for a broad-concept article would be viable only if there are sources that specifically treat the area of overlap, but this seems unlikely given that the overlap appears to be in name only. – Uanfala (talk) 19:14, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

German past participle

German forms the past participle as ge- + root + -t (or -en), e.g. infinitive glauben "to believe" → past participle geglaubt. Is this an augment? There are exceptions, in particular when a verb has an inseparable prefix: stören "to disturb" → gestört but zerstören "to destroy" → zerstört. Hairy Dude (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 19 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:17, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

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Augment (linguistics) → Augment (Indo-European) – I don't see why the first move failed, as having Augment (Bantu languages) alongside Augment (linguistics) is silly (not to mention a bit Indo-European-centric?). The article itself already clearly states that its scope is the Indo-European languages, and since there are multiple linguistic articles about phenomena called "augment", there is no reason at all to keep this at its current name. Rua (mew) 17:25, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Even if the Indo-European iteration is far more notable, it is not the primary meaning of "augment". Since the title is already disambiguated, make the disambiguator meaningful and move it to Augment (Indo-European). Despite WP:TWODABS, readers might benefit from a (new) separate page at Augment (linguistics) to include the non-Indo-European and non-Bantu cases noted here (as a CONCEPTDAB). It could have a dicdef like "In linguistics, an augment is a syllable added to the beginning of the word" and list the cases of Indo-European, Bantu, Nahuatl and Quenya with appropriate links. —  AjaxSmack  03:19, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

  I think the High Elvish case could be included in the Indo-European article, because it is clearly inspired by the IE augment, being used on past tense forms just like in Greek and Sanskrit. Rua (mew) 15:10, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support. The IE meaning is certainly more well-known, but not so much so as to be seen as the primary topic for the term. I don't see scope for a CONCEPTDAB article: even though the several unrelated morphemes that have been called "augment" seem to have certain similarities: they are affixes consisting in a vowel and they have an inflectional meaning that appears difficult to define exactly, the fact that they're named like that is largely incidental and it doesn't make sense to speak of "augments" cross-linguistically. The various meanings should be listed in a dab page, and the usual way is for this to be on the main dab page: Augment#Language. – Uanfala (talk) 08:43, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

augment does not always bear the accent in Greek

The article states that the augment 'always bears the accent', but this is not true in Ancient Greek if there are more than three syllables, e.g. ἐλύσαμεν. Maybe this is a Greek innovation, I'm not sure. Exarchus (talk) 15:54, 26 May 2023 (UTC)