Re: Etymology of Osettic "Nart"? (the suffix?)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Edlund Anderson" <cea@...>
wrote:

> I've been looking into the etymology of the Ossetic name "Nart".
> The connection with PIE *(a)ner- "vital energy; man" seems
> straightforward enough, though I don't yet understand
> the -t. I thought perhaps some kind of proto-Iranian
> plural/collective -ta suffix might be involved, though checking
> Pokorny, I see he suggested an earlier Iranian form like *nar-Ï`ra-
> (I think the symbol before the -ra- is a theta/θ). I'm not sure
> what a "-thra-" suffix might imply. Any thoughts?

If the suffix is *-θra as claimed by Pokorny -- who glosees "osset.
-kaukas VN Nart (iran. *nar-θra)" --, then it could be an unattested
Old Iranian cognate of the Avestan agentive suffix -θra. The latter is
used to form substantives which are the inanimate accomplishers of an
action (as -tra does in Sanskrit). The same suffix is also used in
Avestan to form abstract nouns.

Yet, Old Iranian *nar 'man' is a noun, not a verb. How can it be
joined to an agentive suffix?

Perplexed,
Francesco