The origin of Attic Reduplication

Abstract

The origin of Attic reduplication (AR) in Greek, the phenomenon whereby roots beginning with VC- sequences copy the entire sequence in reduplication, is poorly understood. Contrary to the usual approach, which starts from the perfects of roots beginning with *HC- clusters (e.g., ἐλυθ- ‘go out’ < *h1ludh-; perf. ἐλήλ(ο)υθα < *h1leh1l(ó)udh-?), it is argued here that AR began in the reduplicated aorist, where intensive reduplication was a shared innovation with Armenian (Gk. inf. ἀραρεῖν ‘fit together’ = Arm. 3 sg. arar ‘made’ < *h2er-h2r-e/o-). From here AR spread first to the weak forms of the perfect, leaving relic forms like the feminine participle ἀρᾰρυῖα, and then to the perfect paradigm more generally. The historical origin of AR was thus quite different from what might have been supposed from its descriptive profile in a synchronic grammar—a point to which a final discussion is devoted.