The Superlative Pantheon: Reconstructing the PIE Suffix *-mmo- as a Productive Theological Matrix in Archaic Greek Naming Conventions

This paper introduces a transformative structural hypothesis in historical Indo-European linguistics, proposing that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) superlative suffix *-m̥mo- (traditionally reconstructed strictly as a marker of relative or spatial position, e.g., *pŕ̥h₂m̥mos / "first-most") operated as a highly active, productive semantic engine used to forge the titles of supreme archetypal entities, deities, and sacred geography. While mainstream comparative linguistics historically categorizes the prominent nasal intervals (-m-) in archaic Greek divine names as disparate nominal extensions (*-mo-, *-men-, *-mā-), this study isolates a persistent trilateral blueprint: [PIE Root] + [*-m̥mo-] + [Animate/Gender Suffix] Applying strict Indo-European phonological mutations to the Greek landscape, the syllabic nasal *m̥ vocalizes uniformly into the expected (-am-) or (-em-) intervals. When tested against the archaic pantheon, this morpho-semantic formula reveals a highly systematic divine taxonomy. Rather than arbitrary local developments, figures such as Artemis (*h₂ŕt-m̥mo-is), Themis (*dʰeh₁-m̥mo-is), and Hermes (*her-m̥mo-es) are exposed as native PIE compounds explicitly engineered to denote the absolute, supreme manifestation of their respective domains—yielding literal translations of "The Ultimate Bear Archetype," "The Supreme Established Law," and "The Ultimate Boundary Keeper." Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that this "superlative naming factory" was simultaneously utilized to map the early Greek sacred landscape. The linguistic mechanisms under scrutiny are corroborated by an exhaustive analysis of core geographic and epic vocabulary, most notably exemplified by the flawless phonetic and semantic calibration of Priamos ("The First-Most/Foremost King"), Pergamos ("The Highest-Most Citadel"), and Potamos ("The Most Violently Rushing Force/River"). By shifting the analytical framework from static word-inheritance to dynamic, inherited cognitive blueprints, this study proves that individual daughter cultures retained a prehistoric naming architecture. Ultimately, this research provides a unified field theory for the intersection of archaic Greek myth, landscape, and Proto-Indo-European grammatical design.