Re: [tied] -(o,e)vic^

Speaking of familial suffixes, does anyone know where the female Russian (is it just Russian?) "-skaya" suffix came from? Is it a take on the "-ski"/"-sky" male (I think?... Polish?) suffix?

At 22:50 12/8/00 +0100, you wrote:

It's a combination of two suffixes (also occurring in isolation): the patronymic or possessive *-ov- (as in Ivan-ov or Gasior-ow-ski, with the variant *-ev-, originally added to roots ending in a palatal consonant), and patronymic *-ik- > *-ic [-its]/*-ic^ [-itS]. The <c/c^> results from the so-called progressive palatalisation in late Common Slavic, producing different reflexes in different dialects.

Older Polish surnames had the West Slavic ending -(ow)ic/-(ew)ic, but now they mostly have -owicz/-ewicz [-ovitS] due to East Slavic influence radiating from the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the Polonised gentry in those parts had surnames in -icz).

Piotr