21st Century Classical Greek -- leipo losing a vowel

Thucydides Book I section 11 has a verb you’ve seen before.

I 2.1

φαίνεται γὰρ ἡ νῦν Ἑλλὰς καλουμένη οὐ πάλαι βεβαίως οἰκουμένη, ἀλλὰ μεταναστάσεις τε οὖσαι τὰ πρότερα καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἕκαστοι τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀπολείποντες βιαζόμενοι ὑπό τινων αἰεὶ πλειόνων.

I 10.2

Λακεδαιμονίων γὰρ εἰ ἡ πόλις ἐρημωθείη, λειφθείη δὲ τά τε ἱερὰ καὶ τῆς κατασκευῆς τὰ ἐδάφη…

I 11.1

…ὑπολειπομένοις ἀντίπαλοι ὄντες.

Leipo loses a vowel in the imperfective eventive; here is the Wiktionary entry.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%AF%CF%80%CF%89#Ancient_Greek

The same thing happens, if you remember, in poeio and faino.

Leipo also loses the letter pi in parts of its conjugation. It assimilates to the first consonant of the conjugational ending. See White, page 244, section 775.

Losing vowels and consonants is nothing new for a NE Anatolian language. All Semitic languages do this, although it’s a little more predictable than in the Greek. Some time when you have a free brain cell, study up on hollow, assimilated and “defective” verbs in Arabic.