The history of Greek '*πίφρημι'.

After a survey of all the attestations, until Roman times, of the lexeme listed as either -πίφρημι or -φρέω in the reference dictionaries of Ancient Greek, it is argued that the conventional explanation of this verb, which revolves around the aorist of προ-ίημι, needs to be revisited and refined. Contrary to widespread opinion, forms pointing to a present stem -φρεε/ο- and a sigmatic aorist are not to be dismissed as corrupt, secondary, or later than forms belonging to a κ-aorist. The pivot form of the entire system must have been the 1sg. aorist subjunctive, from where a new 'stem' containing the element -φρ-° first spread into the future; two parallel and competing aorist-stem and present-stem formations were then formed on this basis, with developments in both cases following predictable pathways of intraparadigmatic analogy but excluding a single line of descent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]