On the prehistory of Iranian sibilants (based on putative Iranian loanwords in Armenian and Tocharian)

The present article offers a critical analysis of Reiner Lipp’s hypothesis, according to which the Proto-Iranian stage of the development of IndoEuropean palatals *k̂, *ĝ and *ĝh, represented as the sibilants s and z in Common Iranian and as ϑ and d in Old Persian, should be reconstructed as affricates *͜ts and *͜dz respectively. Since the only positive evidence for this theory is provided by the putative earliest borrowings from Iranian into Armenian (arcatʿ ‘silver’) and Tocharian B (tsain ‘arrow’ and tsaiññe ‘ornament’), an objective analysis of these loanwords is needed for an adequate valuation of the hypothesis of Proto-Iranian primary affricates.