Re: [tied] *ekwos and friends

Piotr wrote:
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A new irregularity: final *-s was _always_ lost in Slavic, so *kos would
have become *kU (or *ko, at best).
---


Hi,

An extremely unprofessional remark, but I can't get rid of the feeling that
"s'" in Ukrainian (and in a variety of Slavic languages) might be a
diminutive suffix.

The examples I can bring are scarce and cannot be representative, but they
might give an inkling as to what's going on.

Take "mamus'", "papus'" (vocatives, "ma" and "pa");
"Marusja" - diminutive from Maria, and "Marus'" as vocative.
Similar "Juras'", "Njus'" (for Jury and Anna).
Of course, "didus'" - and there is no vocative here, and the stem definitely
does not include "s".

Such words as "maljusen'kij" which is a diminutive of "malen'kij" (take it
to extreme: "mas'jusen'kij"). That appears to be imitative of children talk
("sjusjukan'je").

But then, "nikogo" (nobody, Gen. decl.) may become "anikogisin'ko" (Ukr.)
(nobody at all) or similar "nikogoshen'ki" (Rus.), less rarely used in
Russian.

That would set the IE horse free, and bring in the "kon'", because somehow
it seems highly plausible for me as a naive speaker, that "kon'" might
become "kos'ja" and its vocative - "kos'" in rural Ukrainian talk.

A.Fuchs