Some Remarks on Grammatological and Morphological Aspects of Linear A Documents: An Internal Analysis Approach

Linear A is an ancient writing system that was used on the island of Crete and a few surrounding Aegean areas between 1750 and 1450 BC to represent the Minoan language(s). Linear A is believed to be a syllabic script, but has yet to be deciphered; consequently, little is known about the Minoan language(s). This paper provides an analysis of recurrent clusters of symbols in order to uncover aspects of the structure of the language that Linear A transcribed. From Linear A inscriptions in readily available publications, similar, frequently recurring clusters were identified, and the comparison and analysis of these clusters yielded three aspects of variation: symbol-internal variation, inter-cluster variation, as well as variants in the wider context. With the observations from the patterns in inter-cluster variation, an approximate morphological breakdown of the clusters was derived, and plausible roots and affixes were isolated. A comparison of the clusters’ immediate environments suggests that the affixes were more likely to have been semantically motivated, while the wider contextual variation provides possible interpretations of the semantic content of the affixes themselves. This internal analysis approach, with the morphological breakdown of the clusters analysed, provides further support for the current hypothesis that the language that Linear A represented was rich in affixation.