EN
The Greek feminizing suffix -issa developed at the end of the classical period, became frequent in the Hellenistic and Byzantine times, and has been productive up to the present day. C.D. Buck found that its origin is unknown. As his conclusion was shared by some leading classical scholars, the author's aim in this paper is firstly to reexamine the development of the Greek suffix and to follow its extension not only to the Greek dialects, but also to the European languages with the exception of the Slavonic ones. A special attention is paid to the question why it was not accepted by the Slavonic languages.