Re: Icelandic/Old Norse -kk- suffix

From: Trond Engen
Message: 68410
Date: 2012-01-24

Brian M. Scott:

> 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.

I've seen suggested that English 'fuck' was borrowed from ON *fukka <
*fuðka. I don't think it would work as an internal English development
from *fuþ-kan- or some such.

--
Trond Engen