Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Douglas G Kilday]

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (11 Feb 2001) wrote:

>Comparing with the inscription on the side, both with respect to
>writing direction and with respect to the actual text, I don't think
>this [order of reading] follows.  On the side we have:

>sivai avis s'ialchvis marasm avis aomai

>This matches the central inscription (boustrophedon, bottom-to-top):

>sivai evistho seronaith s'ialchveis avis marasmav[is ais[?]]

Since the groups of words don't match verbatim, it's hard to conclude
anything about the proper order this way. The two segments duplicate some
material in different arrangements. Two minor points support reading the
central inscription from <maras'm> to <s'ivai>. First, the curving word
<s'ias'i> looks like an afterthought designed to lead the reader from
<holaies' naphoth> into the boustrophedon text, after which the remainder
<aker tavars'io> etc. would logically follow. Second, it makes sense to read
<s'eronaith / s'ivai> as boustrophedon, but not <s'ivai / evistho>, which
requires a very aboustrophic leap across 3/4 the length of the line. Had the
writer intended to start at the bottom with <s'ivai>, I believe he would
have gone right-to-left in order to make the usual boustrophic turn into the
next line above. I propose the following (very tentative) reading:

  holaies'  naphoth      s'ias'i
  of-Holaie the grandson being,

  maras'm              av[is']               sialchveis' avis'
  and having been maro of-the-year, (at age) of-sixty    of-years,

  evistho       s'eronaith s'ivai
  a wise man(?) in-Serona  with-honor(??),

  aker tavars'io      vanalasial   s'eronai    morinai[a]l
  Aker Tavarsio (son) of-Vanalasi, near-Serona of-Morinaia (Murina).

>I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct:

>s-gen.  *-si
>l-gen.  *-la
>loc.    *-i

The oldest Etruscan inscriptions (700 BCE) have s-genitives in -s. In some
of the grammatical literature, datives in -si/s'i (the distinction is
orthographic South/North) are confounded with genitives in -s/s' or regarded
as "emphatic" genitives, and the derivative suffix -s'i/si adds to the
confusion. I don't know any basis for reconstructing the s-gen. as *-si.

The genitive in -la is characteristic of enclitic demonstratives (-cla,
-tla, -s'la/sla, -s'vla/svla from -ca, -ta, etc.). It is not clear that the
dative in -le originated from *-la + -i. Early Archaic nouns taking this
inflection are typically declined thus: nom. Arath, gen. Arathia, dat.
Arathiale. Late Archaic (Orvieto) has gen. Aranthia and Aranthial; Recent
dialects have usually Arntheal, Arnthial, or Arnthal. Whether -l was sounded
but not written in Ara(n)thia is an open question: was it always there
(reduced from *-la), did it excresce, or was it "restored" by analogy?
Lemnian final -l suggests that it was there in Arch. Etr. Since final -a of
*noun-stems* does not contract with -i in Archaic, the vowel of Proto-Etr.
*-la must have been half-short or a schwa, i.e. *-l at .

>abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is]
>dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si]

The l-ablative can be explained as -ls < -las < *-l@ + -s. The s-abl. cannot
be decomposed this way. First, gen. *-si is a figment; second, medial /s/
doesn't just vanish in Etruscan. I prefer to regard -is as unitary.
Compulsive atomists, of course, are free to "derive" it from -i + -s.

>The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be
>extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi).

This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language
can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and
non-functional) is absurd. The notion that inscriptions, which generally
economize words and letters, would bother representing superfluous morphemes
is even more absurd. Whenever functionless morphemes are proposed, it's a
good bet that the proponents don't have a functional grasp of the language
they are analyzing, and their resulting grammar will be dysfunctional.

The noun <zilc> 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of
contrast in usage between locative <zilcti> and comitative <zilci>:

(1) zilachnu ciz zilcti purts'vavcti 'served as zilac thrice in the
purtsva-zilacate' (i.e. he served in *his own* zilacate)
(2) zilci vel[u]s[i] hulchniesi 'during the zilacate of Vel Hulchnies'
(comitative absolute indicating the *year* in which Larth Velchas
consecrated offerings in the Velcha family-tomb)
(3) zilci larthal cusus' titinal larisalc salinis' aulesla 'during the
zilacate of Larth Cusu son of Titinei and Laris Salini son of Aule' (com.
abs. indicating year; dependent construction has replaced earlier
hemiparataxis of entire phrase in com. abs.)

Further illustrations of the distinction between cases could be given, but
my postings are already lengthy enough.

>So I would analyze <Holaiesi phokias'iale> as:

>Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie"
>Gen. phokia-s(i)  "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale
>"for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when
>followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later)
>Etruscan.  Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of
>*Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only
>have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la].

I see we are now using opposite sibilant conventions. I prefer to use <s>
for sigma, <s'> for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs zig-zag for the genitive,
my transcription is equivalent to traditional North Etruscan with gen. in
<s'>. (This has no significance for theories about origins.) It is important
to pay attention to the sibilants. The one in <vanalasial> and <phokiasiale>
is *not* the sibilant found in the gen. and dat. suffixes. Both frontal and
lateral inscriptions on the stele are fully consistent in distinguishing the
sibilants. Palatalization cannot be invoked, as both <sialchveis'> and
<s'ias'i> occur on the stele. Therefore, the -si- in these two words is not
inflectional but derivational. I agree that <holaies'i phokiasiale> is the
dative of 'Holaie the Phocaean', but I don't regard -sial and -siale as
multiple case-suffixes; -si (as opposed to -s'i) is not an inflection.

>On the other hand, we don't have *ai > e in <Seronaith> and <Seronai>,
>"in Seruna", <Morinai-> "in Murina" (and futher -ai in <sivai>,
><arai>).

No. Final -a of *noun-stems* doesn't contract with -i here.

>I don't know what the significance is, but Cyrus H. Gordon (I
>know...), gives the inscription on the Psychro stone as:

>EPITHI
>ZE:THANTHE:
>ENETE: PAR SIPHAI
>i-pi-ti (or: i-ne-ti), in Linear script.

>comparing the name Siphai (bar Siphai = "son of Siphai") to the
>Semitic personal name S-p-y in I Chronicles 20:4.

Davies and Mitchell regard Sipe:y (I Chr. 20:4) as a variant of the name
Se:ph (II Sam. 21:18), meaning probably 'threshold'. I would be very
reluctant to connect the former with <s'ivai>. At best it requires us to
rationalize Lemn. /w/ from West Sem. /p/ in medial position. At worst it
leads us onto the slippery slope down to the "Hee Haw" interpretation of all
enigmatic inscriptions as arbitrarily deformed Hebrew, and I believe *most*
of us don't want that.

>[Odds of 9 to 1 refer to] the a priori probability that whoever it was died
>in his
>sialchveith year rather than in his sialchvei and X-th year.

Depending on custom and mathematical sophistication, it is also possible
that units were omitted when specifying decades. Socrates was apparently 72
years old, but Plato has him describing himself as "ete: gegono:s
hebdome:konta" (Apol. 17D) and "en etesin hebdome:konta" (Crito 52E). It
would be of interest to find out what fraction of Archaic Greek epitaphs
containing ages in words specify decades without units. If it is
significantly over 10%, omission of units must have occurred in some cases.

>> I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60
>> years and 5 years".

>I haven't either, but I don't see much of a problem.  In a
>non-mathematicized society, to say "in his sixtieth and his fifth
>year", may have have elicited a response like: "in his sixtieth WHAT
>and fifth year?".

Possibly, if counting and decades had very recently been introduced.
However, inscriptions tend to economize words, and a literate native with
leisure to read an inscription has enough time to determine the
construction. IMHO the repetition of <avis'> on the lateral and (apparently)
also on the frontal inscription of the stele indicates that the second
<avis'> could not be omitted, probably because of separate constructions.

>In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut.  Take
>the root <tev-> "to show, (to put?)", which appears as <tv-> in the
>mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce"
>(this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]").
>>From the same root we have <tevarath> "referee, judge", and maybe in
>Lemnian the two words <toverona[rom]> and <tavarsio>.  That would make
>sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk.
>eu-histo:r [?])

This mirror-inscription is written on a rectangular tabella held over Juno's
head by Jove. It contains five lines of exactly seven letters each (<ch> and
<th> of course are single letters). I suspect the forms <tva>, <thra>, and
<sce> are shortened from *teva, *thura, and *sece in order to fit the
message into the enclosed space (or the 5x7 scheme, which may have some
obscure significance) with minimal disruption. I believe your translation is
essentially correct. I would connect *thura with the suffix -thur(a) 'member
of a family, religious brotherhood, etc.'

As I have mentioned elsewhere, a connection between the roots of Etr.
<tevarath> and Lemn. <tavars'io> is not implausible. This does not disrupt
the possible interpretation of <tavars'io> as a gentilicium or patronymic.

DGK