Sanskrit devásya, prussian deiwas, lithuanian diẽvojis, russian евоный and the mythical genitive formant *-so

Abstract

To develop the ideas of V. Ivanov and V. Mažiulis, the author states that in course of the decaying of the prenominative IE structure, when the sigmatic nominative/fientive and genitive/fientive forms appeared to be identical, genitive was either differentiated from nominative by stress (so in Prussian and probably in Hittite) or was substituted e. g. by the degenitive adjective form (as in Aryan, Greek and many other languages) of the pattern stem + gen.-s + relative formant (= de­rivative suffix) *ya (*o) + case endings. The latter is preserved in Anatolian forms of the Luvian maššanaššiš type. Here is the origin of the s. c. “genitive formant” *-so>, since genitives of the type Skt. devásya; Horn, λν́κοιο etc. are fossilized stems which earlier were declined: nom. *devas-ya-s, acc. *devas-ya-m etc. Prussian ſteſſe, Slavic česo genitives show the archaic vocalization e/o of the sigmatic formant.