What is the Greek counterpart of (Proto-)Indo-Iranian (*)th?

Almost since the beginning of Indo-European linguistics as a science, it has been noted that the voiceless aspirates (Tenues Aspiratae, henceforth TA) were relatively infrequent and were only attested in very few languages (Indo- Iranian, Greek and Armenian). Usually, Indic and Greek agreed in having a TA, but in a number of instances a Sanskrit or Indo-Iranian aspirate corresponded to a plain plosive in Greek. In most of these instances a Sanskrit th corresponded to a Greek t, but there were instances where Sanskrit th was matched by a Greek th. The article therefore focuses mainly (but not exclusively) on the instances in which a th can be found in Indo-Iranian and discusses what the Greek counterpart is. First, we state the problem and give a brief overview of previous suggestions to solve this problem, but none of these explanations can explain the differences and agreements between the Greek and Indo-Iranian. After the overvie we proceed to an analysis of all the instances and argue that the difference in aspiration between Greek t and (Proto-)Indo- Iranian *th can be explained by the fact that the (Proto-)Indo-Iranian forms are the result of a cluster *th2V or are due to evolutions, specific to Indo-Iranian, Indic or Iranian. Where the Greek counterpart of (Proto-)Indo-Iranian *th is th, we argue that the aspirate has to be posited for PIE or — in case there is no related word in a Western language is lacking — for East-IE.

http://ift.tt/2dRWKVr