How humans made the words.

How humans have made the words? How they created father, grandfather, great grandfather meanings?.

We have in Albanian and English these forms:

1. *at 'father'
2. *gjysh 'grandfather'
3. *stërgjysh 'great grandfather'

The basic meaning of #1: the root is: at 'father'.  In all European languages the “at” is the unattached particle. Only in Albanian it is a really word, not a particle.  It is so clear the first part of the word father is from Albanian *at ‘father.  In the geg Tirana dialect it is also *tate. Ancient Greek átta ‘daddy’, etc.);

Albanian words for father and grandfather has two basic roots that have the capability of standing alone.  The English word grandfather has the added suffix-grand: having higher rank than others of the same category. It is very clear that the word “grandfather” is created after the word “father”, through suffix grand , adding a new signification to the basic meaning of the first term father. It very clear they are not formed at the same time, even though the father and grandfather exist at the same time for the son or the nephew, and this addition-adjective comes from Latin *Grandis 'big, great', which became a size-age quantifier for the English word 'grandfather' . It is not a original one, but got a new meaning performance in this case. A granfather is bigger than a father in the sense of "length of time that each one has existed".
So, Albanian  for "grandfather" has not in use an “add signification” word, an adjective-suffix, but an original native word: gjysh. English and most languages use the grammar possessive forms adding to a noun an adjective in this case.

1.At>ater>fater>father >grand+father=great+ grandfather, great=grand, grandxgrandxfather
2.Giys>gjysh

3. Sipër+tër+gjysh=Stërgjysh

Later:

The addition #1; prefix: F, V, P
The addition #2; sufix: Her, er, re

Adding signification to a word by a prefix is more complicated.

Albanian has a very interesting prefix stër- as well: semantic enlargement or excess: ultra-, super-, over for
1: stër-gjatë 'too tall', stër-bujar 'too generous', stër-zgjat "too long";
2: stërgjysh/'great-grandfather', stër-gjyshe 'great-grandmother', stër-nip ‘greatgrandson;
great-nephew’, stër-mbes ‘great-granddaughter’.
3. There is also a use with verbs, as in stër-holloj ‘go into excessive detail’ (cf.holloj ‘make too thin; clarify; explain in detail’), stër-nxeh ‘overheat; make extremely hot’ (cf. nxeh ‘heat, make something hot’), stër-mundoj 'overstrain;to force beyond a natural or proper limit.
Is it just a semantic extension of Latin 'extra , or a parallel developments, or is there something else?
The Latin form: preposition + Noun type (pro-auos).
The Greek form:. ék-pappos ‘great-great-grandfather’
• epí-pappos ‘grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather’.

(http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/albling/files//2009/03/joseph_presentation.pdf)

               Is the form *epí related with Albanian verb *hip 'climb, go up'?

Other forms:

• Lat. ab-avus ‘great-great-grandfather’
• ad-nepos ‘great-great-great-grandson’
• Sanskrit: prati-naptṛ- 'great-grandson'

• para-prati-naptṛ- 'great-great-grandson' . 

We can see here the prefix  *para, which is known in Albanian as = ‘distant, remote’, but it has in Albanian other very interesting performance meanings as: the "‘para" means “before”.
For example, I am making a new Albanian word *para-gjyshi, which would be 'before-grandfather', which is close to the semantic meaning than Sanskrit. The "para" means not only earlier than the particular time, but also is equivalent with the meaning of English forebear, at a time in the past. The Sanskrit para-prati-naptṛ has the meaning of "after-before-son", in which the logical word order is: A great great grandson is a son born after a grandson. (1.before-para, 2.after-prati.)
The new signification of the new compound word I made the *para-gjyshi is based to the time , when the two language elements take place. I made an experiment with my language, However I doubt that someone has made it really in Russian. The Russian word for great grandfather is  "praded ", and for grandfather is "ded ", with the only exception that the Russian word for before is "do". I'm not so sure about when and where the Russian language was formed, but I am sure that prefix "pra" is not a Russian word. Maybe it happened during the period of time when these meanings coalesced their ancestors were living somewhere else.

Where *stër is coming from?

Maybe it comes from others form of Albanian involving emphasis.

Which one could be?

My etymological suggestion for the generational function of ‘stër-:

1. Albanian shows a word *sipër with the meaning of “above”, “ on top of” . So it is someone “above grandfather”. Albanian having the word *hip for climb brings the conclusion that the *sipër comes from the "sip" which is the root and the "ër", which in this case is  a kind of suffix.

2. Albanian shows another word *tër- that means “ over “/ “excessive”.Seen in *tër-heq 'pull', *tër-boj 'infuriate', *tër-kuzë with the idiomatic meaning “too long”, because the specific meaning of /tër/ is all.

            The phonetic transformation rule: sip+tër>siptër>stër

The meaning for *stër- makes sense only understanding the relation between the specific sense of *sipër and the quantifier sense of *tër-, that when the forms were connected to ‘gjysh', it carried along both functions: Sipër+tër+gjysh= stërgjysh 'Above all fathers', which leads to the concept 'great grandfather'.
In this case the new signification of the new compound word is based to the time-position of one element to the whole of the group amount, where all elements are identical, fathers. The language elements "fathers" are considered mathematically equally like numbers by the unknown creator.


References:
I.Albanian dictionary:
Stër- fjalëform.
Parashtesë me të cilën ndërtohen fjalë të
prejardhura:
a) që tregojnë se diçka bëhet me tepri, ka madhësi
a përmasa të jashtëzakonshme pse është jashtë
asaj që duhet; p.sh. i stërgjatë, stërholloj, i
stërlashtë, stërlodhem, i stërmadh, stërmundim, i
stërplakur etj.;
b) që shënojnë lidhje familjare me largësi përtej tre
brezave; p.sh. stërgjysh, stërnip etj.

Sipër
I. ndajf.
1. Në një vend më të lartë në krahasim me një
tjetër; në pjesën e lartë të diçkaje; lart; në katin a
në katet më lart të një ndërtese, lart.

II."The Etymology of the Albanian stër prefix"; Brian D. Joseph; The Ohio State University.
(http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/albling/files//2009/03/joseph_presentation.pdf)

NO commercial use under any circumstances without my written permission.NO publication without my written permission.Please do not re-post or circulate these files. Send interested people to this page.