CONCERNING A POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN PROTO-SLAVIC *cěditi AND GREEK *yid-: CONSIDERATIONS UPON CERTAIN GREEK CONSONANT FLUCTUATIONS

The article deals with the etymology of the scarcely attested Greekyid- ‘to shed tears’ in connection with a more general issue of the many etymologically puzzling Greek words containing the clusters ks (x) or ps (y), which on their own pose a problem as their phonological nature is understudied and largely obscure (except for the seemingly transparent more recent cases of their emergence on morpheme boundaries, which are not considered here). The article highlights, and enlists a selection of recoverable evidence to demonstrate, that 1) the two clusters may inter- change within one and the same etymon 2) clusters of the type «plosive + s» are subject to metathesis yielding «s + plosive» and vice versa. These two observations are adduced in support of an etymological suggestion which tentatively connects yid- with an IE cognate series that includes, among others, a close semantic match to the Greek lexeme, namely Pro-to-Slavic *cěditi.