From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 17341
Date: 2003-01-02
----- Original Message -----
From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Modern Greek patronymic suffix -POULOS
> In that connection, I have a further question. I read
> somewhere (I forget the source) that the suffix -KO
> present in various Slavic names is supposedly of
> Iranic origin. Is there anything to this?
*-ka- (with later reflexes that may look rather different) is extremely productive in Iranian, but the diminutive formant *-k- is widespread in IE, so Slavic may easily have inherited *-(I/U)k- from the common ancestor. The vowel of -ko (masculine, a variant of *-kU > -k) has been variously explained, but Iranian origin does not explain its special hypocoristic function.
Piotr