Superlative Suffixes in Indo-European and Latin : Relation to Ordinal Numbers and Process of Variation

Abstract

In Proto-Indo-European, the paradigm of comparison was still not established, and there would have only been some suffixes which added a certain meaning to the stem. Among such suffixes, *-mo- was the most important as a superlative suffix in the paradigm of comparison which would later be established. The origin of this suffix has traditionally been attributed to ordinal numbers because of its morphological resemblance to them. In this paper, we accepted Cowgill's opinion that *-mo- existed independently of ordinal numbers in origin. On the other hand, however, I proposed the possibility that this *-mo- formed a secondary relation to ordinal numbers. The connection was originally supported by the fact that the form which had meant 'first' was substituted with that for 'foremost'. *-mo- was embraced within the category of ordinal numbers in this way and, as a result, the similarity between the superlative *-mo- and the endings of ordinal numbers came to be recognized. Through such a process, the other ending of ordinal numbers *-t(H)o- would have been activized as a part of the superlative suffix *-ist(H)o-. Moreover, we have asserted that *-is- + *-mo- seen in Celtic and Italic was not the transformation of *-ist(H)o- based on the replacement of *-t(H)o- by *-mo-, but would reflect an independent and archaic formation because *-mo- is older than *-t(H)o- as a superlative suffix. We observed how the variation of superlative suffixes was brought about, focusing particularly on Latin. *-(t)mmo- and *-ismmo- which contain not -e- as in *-(t)ero- but *-m- are supposed to have been influenced by ordinal numbers, especially, *septmmo- and *dekmmo-.