Intensive Reduplication (Initial *y in Greek)

[Alexander S. Nikolaev]

Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:

> This brings us to the picture:

>    IE   *y- > Gk. /h-/
>    IE *H1y- > Gk. /h-/
>    IE *H2y- > Gk. /h-/ (or /z-/?)
>    IE *H3y- > Gk. /z-/

I'm sorry for my intruding, too; i would like to suggest an
alternative version:

It can be considered proven, that intervocal and initial *y was still
present in the phoneme system of Proto-Greek before the processes of
palatalizations. The important fact is that palatalizations were
also actual for clusters like Cy, when the two sounds were divided
with a morphological boundary, and after the palatalization the
boundary wasn't clear anymore, e.g.

	*sed-yo > hezomai

And thus -z- <*dy was understood as a productive verbal suffix,
(d-yo> dyo) and hence doublets arose like

	agapa(y)o: || agapazo:

which are attested in Homer's language.

And thus there was a position of morphological neutralization of y|z,
which lead to their interpretation as phonetic allophones on the
synchronic level. Then this variativity was transferred to the
initial position (where, i remind, was no morphologically caused
position of neutralization); and when *-y- was lost in intervocal
position, the opposition of initial h<*y and z in some words was
lexicalized.

As far as i remember, words, for which the development *y->*z- could
be assumed, are all somehow semantically close ----- may be this
could be the case, i mean the theory of lexical diffusion.

Regards,
Alex