Syllabic r in Mycenaean Greek?

Abstract

In some important contributions E. Risch has formulated his standpoint about the genesis of the Greek language; an eminent merit of these works lies to my mind in his repeated and emphatic warnings against incautious use of the dialectal situation of archaic and classical times as a basis for the reconstruction of linguistic conditions and developments in the second millennium: in other words, against considering the division and arrangement of the Greek dialects visible in later times as a rather linear continuation of a dialectal situation in Mycenaean, Pre-Mycenaean, or even Proto-Greek times. We may differ in judging single phenomena : the results of his considerations that Risch has impressively summarized in 9 main theses cannot be disproved in any essential respect.