"NO" (の) means "NŌ" and "NŌ" means "NO'O"

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”