Augment (Indo-European)

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 are referred to as injunctive forms (because of one of their attested senses).^[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 *h₁é- in PIE (é- in Greek, á- in Sanskrit) and always bears the accent.^[2][3]