Evidence for laryngeal aspiration in Greek? Part I: The “recent” evidence

First of all, since Doric, Aeolic and Ionic-Attic are believed to have undergone this dissimilation, one is tempted to assume that this process occurred at Proto-Greek level, but the fact that Doric and Aeolic have an o and Ionic-Attic has an a indicates that the dialects dissimilated independently after the Proto-Greek period. The forms ... and ... are quoted as being a dissimilation from a proto-Greek form *kr. tros, but even if we accept that their structure was *krtros, that structure is still different from *kr tha ros. [...]we argue that ... and ... are a formation with the productive suffix (t)eros and prefer Proto-Greek *krteros as reconstruction for ... [...]more fundamentally, we believe that both ... and ... are at odds with the suggested evolution *th2V into thV as neither form has the environment *th2V: ... is said to originate from *k'rth2ros (Peters 1993b:95-98) while ... comes from *k'rth2r- ie/o, with the verb being a deverbative from the adjective (and hence a secondary form).11 Peters (1993b:96) argued that the Greek lack of aspiration in ... was caused by the fact that the feminine form *plth2uih2 and the derivative *plth2mon did not have the environment *th2V, and that from those forms the non-aspirated form was generalised throughout the entire paradigm, but the adjective ... does not display this environment either but nevertheless underwent aspiration. Because of time constraints we could only discuss the issue of the laryngeal aspiration very partially.