On 05-02-15 12:05, tgpedersen wrote:
> I probably should have done more homework, but what's the Hoffmann
> suffix, and what does it do?
It's a suffixoid (in fact it behaves more like the second part of a
compound, so we are probably dealing with a lexical morpheme) of the
form *-Hon-, where *H is probably *h3 (Hoffmann himself originally
proposed that it was *h1 and some people still reconstruct it that way).
The meaning is approximately '(having) a lot of...' or 'burdened/charged
with...', e.g. *h2jú-Hon- 'having a lot of vital force' = 'youthful, in
one's prime' (Skt. yúvan-, fem. yu:ni: < *h2ju-Hn-ih2), hence also
further derivatives like *h2ju-Hn.-k^ó- (Skt. yuvas'á- 'young, a youth',
Gmc. *ju(u)ngaz). As first proposed by Eric Hamp, the *h3 of the suffix
may cause the voicing of a preceding stop, as in *h2ap-Hon- 'carrying a
lot of water' = 'river' > *h2ab-h3on-/*h2ab-h3n-.
Piotr