Re: [tied] Re: Slavic endings

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:28 AM
Subject: 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?

You're right. I agree with you that it is not absolutely necessary for
this -o to be very old (like the Australian English -o), though not
impossible. For instance, my name (Mate) is also a kind of
diminutive/hypocoristic originally and this -e is difficult to interpret as
well (maybe originally vocative -e?).

Mate

P.S. Are any of the o-names attested in OCS?