Genetic Descent

[Douglas G Kilday]

>[DGK]

>> I'm not sure we need to invoke substrate for the feminine suffix -issa.  It
>> can plausibly be regarded as an extraction from feminine ethnonyms like
>> <Phoi'nissa> and <Ki'lissa> in which the final [-k-] of the ethnic stem was
>> palatalized by the feminine suffix [-ya].

[Peter Gray]

>There should be evidence of timing available here.   The change -ky- to -ss-
>occurs after Attic speakers are out of immediate touch with Ionic speakers,
>and in immediate touch with Boeotia (since Attic shares the Boeotian reflex
>as -tt-, not -ss- as Ionic). That's relatively late.  So are there feminine
>words in -issa attested significantly earlier than this, such as in
>Mycenaean?

[DGK]

I'm not aware of any. As for the timing, the -issa of Late Latin (< ModE
-ess) comes from Hellenistic Greek, in which the Attico-Boeotian fortition
of -ss- to -tt- is usually not followed. I've seen -issa referred to
Macedonian, which I don't think is necessary. The Hellenistic treatment of
-ss- (and the rough breathing, usually retained when resulting from *swV-,
but not *sV-) probably reflects some kind of consensual phonology in which
peculiarly Attic features, used by a minority of all Greek-speakers, were
not generally adopted.

Xenophon uses fortited velar-stem verbs (<ke:ru'tto:>, <pra'tto:>,
<ta'tto:>, etc.), <tha~tton>, <peritto's>, and <tha'latta>, but he has
<Ki'lissa> 'Cilician woman'. This suggests on its face that the change -ky-
 > -ss- occurred a second time in Attic (since, for example, earlier
<ke:ru'sso:> represents *ke:ruk-yo:). However, Xenophon does not fortite the
-ss- in foreign names (<Issoi'>, <Kolossai'>, <Tissaphe'rne:s>), and he may
have felt that the same rule applied to <Ki'lissa>. If this reflects general
Attic practice, it seems possible that the ethnonyms in -issa escaped the
fortition, being used only for foreign women (I can't think of any Greek
tribes in -kes). At any rate, the extraction of -issa as a general feminine
suffix is post-classical.