Re: [tied] Re: Slavic endings

On 2006-09-12 09:11, Mate Kapović wrote:

> Just a note, perhaps it is not relevant. In Croatian, the names ending in
> -o can be both short-names and hypocoristics, which is differentiated by
> accent/declension. Thus, Sta^nko (G. Sta^nka) is just a shortened name and
> Stánko (G. Stánke:) is a hypocoristic. All kinds of generalizations exist
> of course. But this also proves that not all of o-names are hypocoristic.

You mean that they aren't hypocoristic synchronically, the way <Jack> is
slowly relaxing its historical ties with <John> and may now function as
an independent given name, while <Johnny> is a transparent diminutive.
What I mean is that the older type was once hypocoristic, whatever its
present-day function. Note that Stanko is not just a mere abbreviation
of Stanislav, Stanibor or Stani-whatever with the -o ending; it also
contains the suffix -k-. What was its original value, if not diminutive?

Piotr