-ք

ք Ք Armenian Etymology From hy xcl -ք. The hy -եք in hy երեխեք and other words ending in hy -ա developed from hy xcl -այք, through the regular sound change xcl այ → hy ե; thus hy xcl երեխայք → hy երեխեք. Pronunciation Suffix hy suffix inflectional suffixes hy colloquial dialectal plural nominative case marker for words suffixed with hy -ցի or ending in hy -ա hy երեխեք nominative plural of hy երեխա 1 hy բանկեք nominative plural of hy բանկա 1 hy գյուղացիք nominative plural of hy գյուղացի 1 hy վրացիք nominative plural of hy վրացի 1 forming nouns Derived terms hy See also hy -եր, hy -ներ References 65 Old Armenian Etymology The origin is xcl 1. What follows is Matasović’s summary of opinions, word for word (adjusted for Wiktionary style).19 Some scholars (e.g. Meillet and Godel) take the obvious course and derive it from xcl ine-pro *-s [the masculine-feminine plural nominative case ending], but the sound development of word final *-s to *-kʿ is not universally accepted, though it may be supported by the development of PIE ine-pro *tréyes *treyes three (la trēs) > Arm. xcl երեք, and ine-pro *kʷetwóres *kʷetwores > Arm. xcl չորք. Other linguists assume a pronominal particle added to the bare stem, but the origin of that particle has never been explained. A recent hypothesis derives the morpheme *-kʿ- from the agglutinated xcl ine-pro *dwóh₁ *dwoh₁ two; it would have been originally a dual marker, subsequently replacing the inherited plural. It is worth noting another possibility, although it is a mere speculation: the plural marker *-kʿ can be regularly derived from ine-pro *-s-wes, with the ending of the u-stems ine-pro *-w-es agglutinated to the regular Nom[inative] plural marker ine-pro *-s (cf. the Vedic agglutinated Nom[inative] pl[ural] in -ās-as, e.g. sa अश्व अश्वासस्). Suffix xcl suffix inflectional suffixes plural nominative case marker xcl շունք nominative plural of xcl շուն 1 forming names of countries xcl հայ an Armenian 1 xcl հայք the Armenians collectively 1 xcl Հայք Armenia, the country of Armenians 1 Derived terms xcl Descendants hy -ք References Further reading II 388 102