The origin of Attic Reduplication.

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' < *h ₁ lud ^h - ; perf. ἐλήλ (ο) υθα < *h ₁ leh ₁ l(ó)ud ^h - ?), 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' < *h ₂ er-h ₂ r-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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]