A Retrospection
In an earlier post in this thread, I stated that the word Melissa is an epithet or [feminine] descriptive adjective that was used as a noun, as the name of a certain insect, since I took the ending "-issa" to be an adjective maker or mark like -ikos [English "-ic"] and other
voicings/vocables. But I realize that it can simply be the feminine gender form of any kind of word, possibly along with "-issos" and "-isson". For instance, a man is a kratOr but the female counterpart is a kratorissa. These two Greek words are nouns, just as are the Italian Principe and Principessa [Prince and Princess].
While discussing "melissa", I thought of the word "larissa", which, as I then found out, is actually the Greek word "larisa", the name of various ancient Greek cities. I had wandered whether the word is an adjective and whether there is the masculine "*larisos". No, for Larisa is a noun, which, says a dictionary, means or has the sense of "fortress". On the contrary, I think that the noun Larisa was formed out of the word Laris, an adjective that means, according to Liddell-Scott, Pleasant (to the eyes, ears, tongue), hence Lovely, Sweet, and the like. Hence I presume that "Ialyssos" (considered in our Rhodes Forum) is a masculine noun and that its "-yssos" is from the past participle of the verb "luO".
In an earlier post in this thread, I stated that the word Melissa is an epithet or [feminine] descriptive adjective that was used as a noun, as the name of a certain insect, since I took the ending "-issa" to be an adjective maker or mark like -ikos [English "-ic"] and other
voicings/vocables. But I realize that it can simply be the feminine gender form of any kind of word, possibly along with "-issos" and "-isson". For instance, a man is a kratOr but the female counterpart is a kratorissa. These two Greek words are nouns, just as are the Italian Principe and Principessa [Prince and Princess].
While discussing "melissa", I thought of the word "larissa", which, as I then found out, is actually the Greek word "larisa", the name of various ancient Greek cities. I had wandered whether the word is an adjective and whether there is the masculine "*larisos". No, for Larisa is a noun, which, says a dictionary, means or has the sense of "fortress". On the contrary, I think that the noun Larisa was formed out of the word Laris, an adjective that means, according to Liddell-Scott, Pleasant (to the eyes, ears, tongue), hence Lovely, Sweet, and the like. Hence I presume that "Ialyssos" (considered in our Rhodes Forum) is a masculine noun and that its "-yssos" is from the past participle of the verb "luO".