The use and absence of the augment in the forms ἔδωκ(ε)(ν) and δῶκ(ε)(ν) in the Iliad, compared and contrasted with the overall data of Iliad and Odyssey

In this article, I discuss the use and absence of the augment in the 3rd singular forms ἔδωκ(ε)(ν) and δῶκ(ε)(ν) in the Iliad. This article is a continuation of earlier research into the augment in other epic works (Odyssey, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and the Epic Cycle) and other verbal roots (such as ἔθηκε / θῆκε and ἔειπε / εἶπε), but as all these works and verbs have their own semantics, I decided to perform individual investigations, the data of which are then compared and contrasted with the data of the entire Homeric works. In order to have reliable data that are not influenced by the transmission, I only use the metrically secure forms. First, I list the criteria to determine whether or not a form can be considered secured by the metre (metrical bridges, caesurae, and permitted and prohibited elisions) and then apply these rules to all instances of ἔδωκ(ε)(ν) and δῶκ(ε)(ν) in the Iliad. Once the corpus has been established, I analyse the forms and the passages in which they occur. In my analysis I check if they agree with the previous syntactic and semantic observations that have been made for the use and absence of the augment (Drewitt-Beck's clitic rule, Kiparsky's reduction rule and the distinctions between speech and narrative, foreground and background, and remote and recent past). Occasionally, the data of the corpus were too small to allow for a judgement, but in those instances, to decide on the issue, I compared the results obtained in my investigation to the data of the entire Iliad and/or Odyssey. The current investigation does indeed confirm the findings of earlier research, namely that the use of augmented and unaugmented forms is not governed by chance or the metre, but by syntactic and semantic factors. As a final caveat it has to be added, however, that some exceptions do remain and that none of the rules quoted above is absolute.