Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Douglas G Kilday]

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (2 Feb 2001) wrote:

>Surely you mean bottom-to-top (Holaies naphoth, aker tavarsio...).

>> (The vertical inscriptions, both <aker> etc. and <holaie> etc., show that
>> the writer regarded right-to-left as the default direction,

>I don't follow.

Sorry. I unwittingly changed reference-frames, confusing the directions in
an argument which was poorly organized from the outset. I'll try this again:

(1) The tops of certain letters (A,N,M,R) show that the "vertical" lines of
text (holaies etc., aker etc., etc.) must be read with the head tilted
right. From this position, the writing appears to go from right to left (but
"physically" it goes from bottom to top) as determined by the direction of
these letters and the fact that these lines all start on the reader's right
(the "physical" top of the shield).

(2) The writer might just as well have chosen the opposite convention. This
shows that his "default" direction for letters was right-to-left within a
line of text *viewed* horizontally.

(3) The bustrophedon segment overhead was presumably started in default
direction, so it must be read from <maras'm> to <s'ivai>. These *lines* (not
the letters within them) are then to be read physically from top to bottom.

(4) The same rule should apply to the vertical lines of text; the *lines*
are sequenced from the tilted reader's "top" to "bottom" (physical right to
left). This justifies the order <aker tavars'io vanalasial> etc.

>> so <s'ivai> cannot start the horizontal inscription and must end it.) Had
>> <vanalasial> been written first, it is unlikely that the writer would have
>> stopped with <morinail> and taken the chance on running out of room with
>> <aker tavars'io> in a closed space.

>How high was the stele (and how tall the person that wrote it)?

I dimly recall reading something like 1.5m (the stele, not the writer), but
I can't find the reference now. The stele was most likely prepared on a
table-top before emplacement in the ground. A lapicide's job is strenuous
enough without contortions.

>I'm guessing Phokia is present in <Holaiesi Phokias'iale> "for Holaie
>of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc =
>dat.]).  The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie,
>and maybe further reduced to Phoke.  But I wouldn't bet much on it.

I believe the suffix -i is comitative, originally denoting physical
association or proximity, from which the sense of means or instrument arose
(cf. Eng. "with", "by"). The locative suffix was originally -ith/it(h)i; the
longer form may be a compound with the comitative (cf. Eng. "within"). I
take Lemn. <seronaith> to be a locative, so 'in Phocaea' would be
*Phokiaith. The comitative *Phokiai 'near Phocaea' would not be reduced to
*Phokie here because Lemnian, like Archaic Etruscan, does not contract final
-a of noun-stems with -i of suffixes; that is a feature of Recent Etruscan.

The correct equation is "gen.+com.=dat." Gen.+loc. gives forms like
<unialthi> 'in Uni's (temple)', <tinsth> 'in Tin's (region)'. The Rec. Etr.
form in -sla is not a true "double genitive" but the genitive of the
possessive in -sa. I regard the -si in Phokiasi not as a case-ending but as
a derivative suffix denoting place of origin (cf. Arch. Etr. Uphaliasi 'from
Uphalia'). The sibilant in <phokiasiale> is clearly a sigma, not the zig-zag
<s'> used for genitives here (our notation follows North Etr. sibilant
orthography).

>> The letter <z> is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the
>> fragmentary inscription <zari...>.

>This (<z> in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an
>argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas.

True. Now that I think about it, invoking different schemes for writing
sibilants at Kaminia and Kabirion is rather lame. On an island as small as
Lemnos, one does not expect to find a variety of orthographic conventions
within the same speech-community. However, <s'ivai> still seems more
plausibly interpreted as the comitative of an appellative than as the
zero-case of a proper name, IMHO.

>As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my
>interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from
>Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right).

I haven't seen this argument. Do the odds refer to the probability of <mara>
being a numeral, or to the probability of <mara> meaning 'five' if it is
assumed to be a numeral?

Given that the Etr. title <maru> presupposes a verb <mar->, one could regard
<maras'm> as participle + enclitic, with the following <avis'> dependent on
either the participle or on the action implied by the verb. Then <maras'm
avis'> could mean 'and having been maro of the year' (if there was only one
annual maronate on Lemnos) or 'and having been the maro in charge of
regulating the year' (if there were several marones, and one controlled the
calendar). This is speculative, but IMHO makes more sense than taking <mara>
as a numeral. The Etruscans did not repeat <avils> with decades and units,
and I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60
years and 5 years".

>The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives:
><ci> "3", <cialch> (<cealch>) "30"; <s'a> "6"(or "4"), <s'ealch> "60"
>(or "40"), <semph> "7", <semphalch> "70", <cezp> "8", <cezpalch> "80".
>AFAIK, *<huthalch> [maybe another argument for <huth> = "4", cf. Russ.
><sorok> "40"] and *<nurphalch> are unattested, but in any case, the
>suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral.  In my opinion,
>the easiest way to explain <muvalch> is thus that the simplex of "5"
>is <muv-> [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the
>-ch in <mach> is secondary.

I'm not opposed to the -ch in <mach> being secondary, but the problem of
relating <muv-> to <ma-> remains. Not that it can't be done using phonologic
processes which are reasonable *per se*, but to convince us
phono-nit-pickers it must be done using processes which are known or can be
inferred from other examples *in Etruscan*.

Zero grade? Ablaut in Etruscan? Pallottino proposed such a thing early in
his career (1936) but seems to have abandoned it later, and I haven't seen
any recent work supporting the idea. I certainly don't know any unequivocal
examples of Etruscan ablaut, but being an objective person, I'm always
willing to listen...

DGK