How about this for an origin of the Japanese genitive particle NO (の)?
My thinking is it’s at least para-Polynesian. Or Malayo-Polynesian.
Pacific languages liberally make use of metaphor sourced in material culture to generate vocabulary. I don’t see why this couldn’t be the same with connective syntactic elements.
From:
Malay NO / NYA: “his / her / its”
plus:
Malay KOK: “Yoke”
NO-KOK “his yoke” “her yoke” “its yoke”
I don’t have references for any of this, btw… This is my own wacky mind at work.
What about lost glottalization? Happens all the time with intra-Polynesian linguistic drift.
Take for example: MANONO from MA-NO’ONO’O “able to bind together”; here there is obvious glottalization of the hard stop consonant /k/ and absorption of final /k/ after glottalization.
NO’O from NO’O’ from NO-KOK.
Continuing this process: Eastern Polynesian NO via NŌ from Central Polynesian:
NO’O - binding; noose; to tie up; moor
Japanese NO (の) effectively “binds” the direct object to the personal pronoun. Technically then it doesn’t violate either syntax, but has evolved into a genitive particle, thereby creating a new syntax.
Japanese also uses NO at the end of sentences to emphasize that an explanation has been given.
Preposition: NO in Hawaiian “for”/“of”.
Intensifying particle: NŌ in Hawaiian “really”, but more probably “-bound” / “-ward” / “bound to be” as in “Maika’i nō” - “bound (to be) good”, “good-ish”, “good-ward”
In the Polynesian sphere: ‘O / O “of”, genitive particle
Corruption of KOK via glottalization of initial and final /k/ and finally absorption of final glottal stop.
As for IKEN (意見) “opinion”
It literally means: "Intention/future+look"
Compare with Polynesian:
KITE / ‘I’ITE / ‘IKE “See, know, perceive, predict, foretell”
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