Did 'ᾰ̓κ-ήκο-ᾰ' perhaps come from 'ᾰ̓κο-ᾰκο-ᾰ'? (Greek)

Question

I am trying to fit

ᾰ̓κήκοᾰ (active indicative perfect of ᾰ̓κούω, first person singular)

to the model of

λέλῠκᾰ (active indicative perfect of λῡ́ω, first person singular),

wherein the word breaks down to:

λέ-λῠ-κ-ᾰ, or
reduplication - stem - tense suffix - personal ending.

(Please let me know if I got that terminology wrong already.)

QUESTION

1. Am I right to do it as follows?

   ᾰ̓κ-ήκο-ᾰ, or
   reduplication - stem - [no tense suffix] - personal ending

   To get that far, I relied on Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek, which states:

2. Is there any basis to think that the original reduplication was of the initial vowel and consonant and the second vowel? The idea would be that, for example:

   ᾰ̓κο-ᾰκο-ᾰ → ᾰ̓κ-ήκο-ᾰ.

   Actual attested earlier forms of the ᾰ̓κο-ᾰκο-ᾰ sort would be the best kind of answer.

   Another good answer would give a word that began with a vowel - consonant - consonant sequence, but received an Attic reduplication with the 'lengthening' of the second vowel (which would, as it were, refute the theory being proposed). Note that all four of Mastronarde's examples begin with a V-C-V sequence (tempting one to the theory).

BACKGROUND

As an aside, the theory seems to represent my mind's trying to reduce the number of primitive devices (already too many). Reduplication of some number of initial letters (up to three) seems like fewer such devices than reduplication or reduplication plus lengthening.

Answer 1

Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on your point of view -- "Attic reduplication" is one of the many irregular areas of Greek morphology which can only be understood by going back to Proto-Indo-European. Here's a short version of the probable answer:

PIE *h₂ke-h₂kows-h₂e > akākowsa > akākowa > akēkoa

This is a perfect form of the root *h₂kews- "hear" (which actually also gives us the English verb hear!). The rule for perfect formation in PIE was to place the root in the pattern Ce-CoC-, where Ce- reduplicates the initial consonant of the root, and add the perfect endings. But, each of those C's can stand for more than one consonant: if the root began with two consonants, as here *h₂k, both of those could be reduplicated, hence *h₂ke-.

Now apply the following regular sound changes:

• Initial *h₂ before a consonant > a
• *h₂e > a
• *eh₂ > ā > Attic-Ionic η
• intervocalic *s is lost
• intervocalic w is lost (in Attic-Ionic and many other dialects)

... and you get ἀκήκοα.

(Note that there is some debate both about the etymology of this particular verb and the origin of Attic reduplication generally, but the above seems to be the majority opinion.)

The explanation for other such verbs, like those in Mastronarde's table, is similar, except with different laryngeals: *h₁ for verbs with ε/η, *h₃ for verbs with ο/ω.

Answer 2

Discussions of proto-Indo-European, and especially those postulating multiple laryngeals, are best when copiously peppered with words like “perhaps”, “possibly”, “hypothesis”. The so-called Attic reduplication is a highly contested matter and there is no consensus about its origin. What one needs to mention in any case is that, unlike the regular reduplication of the type le-lu-ka (which is well known in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Gothic and other languages), the “Attic” reduplication is specific to Greek and is thus likely to be a Greek innovation, not an inheritance from IE. Also, that in Sanskrit, and mostly also in Greek, roots beginning with a consonant cluster reduplicate only the first consonant of the cluster (type: ke-kleia; *si- > hi-stāmi). This is the problem with the proposed proto-form *h₂ke-h₂kows-h₂e.