Az erza-mordvin állatnevek ősi képzői

There is a relatively large number of animal names that contain some kind of an obscured, no longer transparent suffix. These suffixes can only be traced with the help of etymological methods and are principally of diminutive origin. Although the Uralic/Finno-Ugric etc. proto-languages were remarkably rich in suffixes, derivative words are not easily traceable in the proto-language and only few of them have been actually detected. Of the 1400 entries in UEW only 103 forms contain some kind of a suffix, and there are as few as 16 animal names among these. The actual semantic loadedness of these suffixes was probably significantly higher, since these may have also been added to lexemes of the core vocabulary that have no equivalents in the related languages, and which, for this reason, are not included in the vocabulary of the etymological dictionaries. On the other hand, these suffixes were not only productive during the time of proto-languages, but also later, taking an active part in word formation in the course of the separate lives of the related languages in the family. – Mordvin animal names have not been much discussed from an etymological point of view and they are only scarcely mentioned in the various papers written on the history of suffixes and in etymological dictionaries. The present essay discusses the primitive suffixes that have continuations in Erzya animal names among others. The description of each suffix begins with a short discussion of its origin, then a summary of what the literature says about the relating animal names follows, and finally, the individual lexemes are listed in a dictionary entry format. Ten of the suffixes and suffix clusters take a -C form (-ka; -ga, -go, -ge; -t, -ata; -v; -j; -s, -ś, -z, -ź; -š, -ž, -č; -l; -r; -n) and two of them take a CVC form (-źej, -kaj). It is demonstrated that the element (-gan) is not a member of the group of primitive suffixes, as opposed to what earlier discussion in the literature stated. The semantic loadedness of these suffixes varies from one to another (it is curious that one of the most productive suffixes, -m is not used for animal name formation). This paper discusses 108 animal names altogether in the form of dictionary entries.