--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> For a variety of reasons, heroes and rulers are often known under
> what
> are etymologically pet names (suffice it to mention Robin Hood and
> Attila), and examples of nouns with 100% masculine semantics and
neuter
> etymology are not difficult to find (cf. Pol. ksia,z.e,). There's
> no
> need to believe that the use of an originally hypocoristic form
> implies
> any disrespect to the hero or casts doubt on his machismo.
Rules and heroes are different and heroes come in different
varieties.
Rulers, especially populist rulers like Attila appears to have
been, need to show that they are close to the ruled (we have it on
Priscus' authority that he liked showing off how simple his tastes
had remained despite his exalted position). Hypocoristics and
diminutives can help here. The name "Attila" has always struck me as
propagandistic.
Robin Hood is a very peculiar kind of hero, whose hallmark is
compassion. The kind of hero I was thinking of was the egotistical
testosterone-driven typical male of the Achilles type.
But lacking a broadbased overview of naming tendencies in such cases
I guess we aren't going to get much further here.
As for the indeclinability:
> I'd say that the neuter theory fares even better in this respect.
> We get
> nom.sg. = acc.sg. = voc.sg. -o for free, so there's more _initial_
> indeclinability in the pattern and consequently less to explain.
> Once
> the grammatical interpretation of the diminutives had switched to
> fully
> masculine, those atypical -o forms gave the impression that the
> formation was simply indeclinable. What's problematic here?
The idea that the absence of a formal distinction between Nsg, Asg
and Vsg could lead to complete loss of inflection strikes me as
completely fantastic given the Slavic context, particularly because
in the period involved ordinary msc o-stems did not differentiate
between Nsg and Asg, so that it is the Vsg that has to carry the
seeds of the entire process.
> It isn't fair to say that *-o < *-os yields a straightforward
solution.
If it can be shown that the 1pl of the verb really needs *-os > -U,
then things are different, but it would mean that the entire
conception hinges on this single ending (which, to be sure, is
nothing unusual among Auslautgesetze).
As I recall Kortlandt's -mom, it is not ad hoc given the overall
structure of his conception, but I may be mistaken here.
Respectfully, W.