Paar võimalikku k epenteesijuhtu: kohkuma ja rõhk
Two possible cases of epenthesis of k: kohkuma and rõhk

Summary/Abstract: There are words in Estonian in which an epenthetic plosive (typically k) is added to a single consonant which in words with gradation represents the weak-grade form of a consonant cluster, such that secondary pairs of strong/weak-grade forms emerge: hk : h, ht : h, sk : s, lg : l, rg : r. Such words include vihkama : vihata ‘to hate’ (cf. Finnish vihata, prs sg1 vihaan), toht : tohu ‘birch bark’ (cf. Finnish tuohi), kuusk : kuuse ‘spruce’ (cf. Finnish kuusi, genitive kuusen), salgama : salata ‘to deny’ (cf. Finnish salata, prs sg1 salaan ‘keep in secret, deny, hide’), möirgama : möirata ‘to roar’ (cf. Finnish möyrytä, prs sg1 möyryän, dialectal möyrätä ‘to roar, rumble, rustle’) and others.The article demonstrates that the words kohkuma ‘to become frightened, startled’ and rõhk ‘pressure; accent; emphasis’ also likely contain epenthetic k. The verb kohkuma may be a secondary formation from the verb kohu-ta-ma ‘to swell, make fluffy, raise; to frighten, scare (away), dismay’ < kohu- (cf. Estonian kohev ‘fluffy’, kohuma ‘to swell, become fluffy (through boiling or fermentation)’, Finnish kohota ‘rise, spring up’ etc.), that is, a causative derivation originally formed from a non-gradable stem has been interpreted as a weak-grade form, and the corresponding reflexive/passive verb has been formed with a strong stem variant as per the hk : h alternation pattern. Semantically, the verb kohutama has developed as follows: ‘to swell, make fluffy, raise’ > ‘to raise, lift’ > ‘to make (someone) get up, scare off’ > ‘to scare, startle’. Older data suggest that the word kohkuma has also previously carried the meaning of being scared into motion, e.g. it has been used in reference to skittish horses.The noun rõhk, genitive rõhu ‘pressure; accent; emphasis’ is formed from the non-gradable verb rõhuma ‘to press; suppress; oppress’. Two alternative etymologies have been suggested for this word: it is related either to the Finnic verb root *rouhV-, cf. Finnish rouhia ‘to crush, pound, grind’, or *rehkV-, cf. Finnish rehkiä ‘to toil, drudge, slog away; make noise, rage’, also Estonian dialectal (South Estonian) rehkmä ‘to wave, gesticulate, thrash (a snake)’. Considering the dialectal spread of the word rõhuma (and its variants rõhk(u)ma, rõuhkma), along with its phonetics and semantics, the more plausible etymology is that it is related to the Baltic loan steam *rouhV- (in Estonian the regular metathesis uh > hv has taken place, such that the v is dropped from the cluster -hvu-). The epenthetic k in the noun rõhk and in the dialectal variants of the verb rõhuma (rõuhkma and rõhkma) may not be related to one another, because in the verbs the k has at least sometimes (rõuhkma) been added before the metathesis of the uh-cluster, and the dialectal spread matches only in part.

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