Widely shared later innovations

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses innovations which cut across older, well-established dialect groupings and which therefore must have spread across existing dialect boundaries. Sound changes discussed include the second compensatory lengthening and other changes to ns-clusters; the loss of the digamma and its consequences; contractions of vowels in hiatus and the system of long mid vowels; outcomes of Proto-Greek affricates; and psilosis. Among morphological changes the most important are the development of 3pl. imperatives, the development of subjunctives and optatives, and extensive changes to perfect stems. None of these changes is characteristic of a single dialect group. All, however, gave rise to salient differences between dialects, and none is confined to a single dialect.