Re: [tied] Re: Russian patronymics

06-01-04 23:22, Sergejus Tarasovas wrote:

> Do Polish last names such as <Mickiewicz>, <Sienkiewicz> have some
> special relation to the upper class? Or are they East Slavic in
> origin? ... 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.

The <-ewicz> type is Belarusian-influenced, and was very common among
the petty nobility of the eastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. There were so many of them that the original final <-ic>
of Polish patronymic surnames and even of common-noun derivatives in
has changed to <-cz> in most cases (e.g. królewic > Mod.Pol. królewicz,
Szymonowic > Szymonowicz, etc.) The oldest patronymic formations in
Polish corresponded quite closely to the Russian ones (<-'> from *-jI,
<-ów>/<'-ew>, <-in> [all mainly possessive, the last one derived from
nouns in <-a>]; <-ic>, <-ow-ic>/<'-ew-ic>, <-in-ic> [specialised
patronymics, eventually recycled as surnames]).

> 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).

Same in Poland, hence innumerable placenames in <X-owice> and <X'-ewice>
(formally plural), meaning '(the place of) people related to X'.
Typologically, they parallel Old English placenames in -ingas.

Piotr