Re: [tied] Re: suffix -ko

12-01-04 10:39, Marco Moretti wrote:

> Are we sure that /*Ops-ko/ and /*Xeruska-/ < /*Kerusko-/ are formed
> from IE roots? Etymological explanations are very poor in the case of
> Osci: the name originally didn't belong to Samnites, but to a
> submitted people of Campania, of uncertain origin; a variant Opici
> was also used. Cherusci may be from an IE root for "stag", "deer",
> still preserved in the learned English word "hart". But sigmatic
> suffix is quite strange.

I'd say that the suffix is ethnonymic *-(i)sko- in both cases, and that
Cherusci = *xerut-(i)ska-, either with a shorter variant of the suffix
or with early syncope of *-i-. *op-iko- and *op-sko-, if so divided,
would then be parallel forms with alternative suffixes playing the same
function (fpom op- 'power'?)

Piotr