Re: Icelandic/Old Norse -kk- suffix

At 3:11:53 PM on Monday, January 23, 2012, stlatos wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>> At 3:14:51 PM on Sunday, January 22, 2012, gprosti wrote:

>>> Hello,

>>> Does anyone happen to know the origin of the suffix -kk-
>>> in Icelandic/Old Norse (as seen in hækka "rise, ascend" <
>>> hár "high", fækka "lessen" < fár "few" etc.)?

>> According to de Vries, <fækka> is the result of assimilation
>> in an earlier form <fætka>, which is actually attested.
>> There is also a <smækka> 'to make small', from *smætka, from
>> <smár>. He takes these to be the result of adding a <-k->
>> suffix to the neuters <fátt> and <smátt>.

> That makes no sense.

Says the man who wrote

The root * sak+ is identical to * kas+ 'cut' (as in cut >
kill/sacifice > (be) sacred, etc.), since the order of C
in a root, whether to each other or to V, didn't matter in
PIE.

and

All known languages not currently classified as IE are
actually from one branch of IE: Indo-Iranian.

The ON suffix, whatever its source, is actually <-ka>, added
to an adjective X to form verbs with a sense of 'to make or
become X'; <-kk->, <-tk->, and <-tt-> forms are exceptional.

Brian