--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
...
> The extension of these basic patronymics with
> pleonastic <-ic^> (also with a patronymic function), was
originally, as
> far as I know, an upper-class phenomenon, and the right to it was
at one
> time a special honour bestowed by the tsar on his dignitaries
(hence
> surnames such as <Il'jinic^> and the modern type of patronymic
> exemplified by <Ivanovic^> and <Sergejevic^>).
...
> Sergei can certainly
> correct and supplement this brief sketch of the matter.
Not that I had much to add or correct... I don't think patronymics in
<-o/ev-ic^(I)> and <-in-ic^(I)> had something to do with the upper
class, at least originally -- they are regsitered as early as XI c.
(i.e., as early as possible), are often in graffity, birch bark
inscriptions and other informal texts and refer to the
representatives of all social strata, sometimes even being formed
from the diminutives (if not pejoratives!) in -s^-Ik-
(<Miros^Ic^inic^I>, Kriv. <SUbys^IkinicI>). Do Polish last names such
as <Mickiewicz>, <Sienkiewicz> have some special relation to the
upper class? Or are they East Slavic in origin? Interestingly enough,
<X-ov-ic^I> could also mean 'an inhabitant of a (small) settlement
related to X' -- thus *_Kyjevic^I_ -- if had have existed -- would
have meant 'an inhabitant of a <KyjI>'s (homestead or so)' (what is
actually registered is <KyjaninU> 'Kiever'; Kiev is not a homestead).
Even in the earliest records, patronymics in <-o/ev-ic^I> (from (j)o-
declension stems), <-in-ic^I> (a- and i-declension) and <-ic^I> (all
declensions) already form a rather independent grammatical category,
while patronymics in <-ovU>, <-inU>, *-jI originally were still
possessive adjectives, requiring determinable words like <synU>,
<dUc^i>, <vUnukU> -- probably this is somehow related to the facts
that this latter group has been transformed into last names, while
the first has retained its purely patronymic function.
Sergei