Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Douglas G Kilday]

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (23 Feb 2001) wrote:

>I'd better quote (translate) Beekes & v.d. Meer in full:

>[paradigms:]

>stems in: -a               -u     -e      -i     -C     plural

>nom.      -a,-0            -u,-0  -e,-0   -i,-0  -C     -r
>s-gen.    -as              -us    -es     -is    -Cs    -ras
>s-abl.    -es              -uis   -e(i)s  -is    -Cs
>s-dat.    -asi             -usi                  -Csi   -rasi
>l-gen.    -al              -ul    -el            -Cl
>l-abl.    -al(a)s
>l-dat.    -ale,-althi
>loc.      -e                      -e(i)
>loc.+thi  -ethi,-aithi            -ethi                 -rthi

>The _genitive_ was treated above [discussion about distribution of -s
>and -l genitives].

Not bad for a Procrustean attempt to force Etruscan into the IE mold. Forms
in -ul are not genitives but abstract nouns, e.g. <thunchul> 'union'. I'm
surprised they didn't include nouns in -il under l-gens. of i-stems. C-stem
locatives are conspicuous by their absence; I have more to say below.

>An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With
>the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably
>from *-la).  This is the so-called double genitive.  With the gen. in
>-s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s
>with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es.

The ablative is *not* the so-called double genitive. This is a factual error
on the part of B&vdM. The term "doppio genitivo" for the forms in -s'la/sla
was established by the 1930s and used by Buonamici, Pallottino, Buffa, and
many others: e.g. s-form Aules'la 'of...of Aule'; l-form Larthalis'la
'of...of Larth'. Pfiffig pointed out that the formation is actually
genitive-of-possessive, since we have possessives Aules'a 'that of Aule' and
Larthalis'a 'that of Larth'. These evidently arose from the union of the
genitive with an old demonstrative *is'a/isa. The s-form suffered regressive
sibilant absorption: Aules'a < *Aulesis'a.

>Another form, which Rix calls pertinentivus, but most _dative_,
>originated by adding the locative ending -i to the genitive; so -s-i,
>but -la-i > -le.

>These last two forms (ablative and dative) are easily understood if
>the genitives in -s and -l were originally adjectives (so not "of X"
>but "X-ish" [Du. "dus niet 'van de school' maar 'schools'"]).  Cases
>of cases are not unusual, especially with the genitive (e.g. in the
>Caucasus).

The facts about Etruscan nominal morphology are understood *better*, not
necessarily more *easily*, when we recognize that "oblique" case-forms may
be "redetermined" as stems for further inflection, and the process is not
confined to the genitive. I discussed this before.

>The _locative_-ending was -i.  With -a this gave -ai > -ei > -e.  -thi
>and t(e) were postpositions, that could be added after the ending -i,
>e.g. -aithi > -ethi.

>The plural was marked by an -r after the stem; ais pl. ais-e-r "gods".
>After that came the same endings as in the singular.  Note that before
>the genitive -s, an -a- appears; this probably belonged with the r, so
>-r < [*]-ra.

I see B&vdM have (wisely?) neglected to mention the nominal forms in -eri,
which according to their previous paragraphs should be "locatives" of
plurals, even though they give the *correct* loc. pl. -rthi in their
paradigms, which by their *own* analysis should be *-rithi or *-rethi.

A century ago Torp observed that the forms in -eri are used much like
genitives. IMHO the simplest explanation is that they are comitatives of
association of plurals/collectives which substitute for genitives when the
latter, due to their connotations, sound inappropriate. I take <zilc
cechaneri> to mean something like 'magistrature in charge of contractual
matters', with *cechana 'contractual matter, document, etc.' from <cecha>
'contract'. Latin has a rough parallel in "magister ab epistulis". Why not
"magister epistularum"? Because the resemblance to "magister equitum" etc.
would connote a ludicrous image. Likewise <zilc cechaneras> would give the
impression of a magistrate with the job of ordering documents around.

><end quote>

>> 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.

>Is it?

Perhaps I misunderstood your use of "optional", which I took to signify
"functionless". Below you recognize that -thi *is* functional, so this
matter is not in dispute. I certainly don't want to start a free-for-all
over "empty" morphemes, or allow this otherwise fruitful discussion to
degenerate into quibbling about "deep structure" or similar hogwash.

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

[snip of example]

>I wouldn't call that a "comitative".  It's simply a generalized
>locative (here in a temporal sense).  It's quite possible that the
>"optional" postposition -thi was added to emphasize a _local_ locative
>("in", not "during", "on" etc.)

You may call the case in -i whatever you like. Pfiffig called it the
"Modalis", which never caught on. I used to call it the instrumental, but
there are several instances like <murce Capue>, <etve thaure lautnes'cle> in
which the usage is not instrumental but proximative (distinct from
locative). I don't particularly like "comitative", but other choices like
"sociative" and "comessive" are even worse.

The principal usage of the case in -i is instrumental, which hardly
qualifies as a "generalized locative" unless one is willing to introduce
severe distortions into traditional terminology. Calling the ordinary
locative a "local locative" brings the terminology into the theatre of the
absurd.

Furthermore, consonant-stem locatives do not result from adding -thi to the
case in -i, e.g. <s'pelth(i)>, <thucht(i)>, <spanthi>, <craps'ti>, <luthti>,
<lacth>, <eclthi>, and of course <zilcti>, whose minimal morphemic contrast
with <zilci> illustrates the independence of the suffixes. Again, if the
analysis of B&vdM were correct, the true locative-of-genitive would consist
of genitive plus -i plus -thi, i.e. dative plus -thi, which it doesn't. We
have <Unialth(i)> and <Tinsth>, not *Unialeth(i) and *Tinsith.

>> 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 can actually be taken as another argument in favour of *-si (-i
>was dropped in S. Etruscan, but palatalized the sibilant to -s' in N.
>Etruscan).

No, because the North/South distinction is orthographic, not phonetic. That
is, N. Etr. <s'> (sadhe, looks like M) was the same sound as S. Etr. <s>
(sigma or S), and vice versa. This historical accident has created endless
confusion. Recent volumes of Studi Etruschi deal with the problem by
introducing Greek sigma <6> for S. Etr. <s'>, so normal S. Etr.
transcriptions contain no primed letters. OTOH N. Etr. <s> is labeled <6'>,
while <s'> remains <s'>. Hence the phonemes are never confused (but the
reader can be). I prefer to transcribe as written, and when necessary the
phones are s/s' (gen. suffix) and s'/s (the other one).

There is some evidence for s'/s being close to a palatalized form of s/s'.
At Castel d'Asso one tomb has <nes'l>, the regular Southern form, while
another has <neisl>. Presumably the second writer thought <s'> sounded like
palatalized <s>. Also, some Northern texts have <spur-> for <s'pur->, but
genitives with normal <s'>. This suggests a process in part of the North
parallel to the palatalization of <sp->, <st-> in NHG. Hence it seems fairly
safe to consider the genitive suffix as /s/, the other sibilant as /s^/. The
third sibilant <z> was definitely unvoiced; my guess is it was similar to
ich-laut or /hy/ with lips spread.

>If *-si-al(a) (double genitive) was common enough, it might have been
>palatalized to /-Sial(a)/ even where this would not normally have been
>the case (anyway, I'm half inclined to read <s'ias'i> as <[av]is'
>ais'>).

The direction the *letters* are facing requires <s'ias'i>; there is no
ambiguity about the zig-zags, which always begin with the downstroke. I
think [is'] was simply effaced from the end of the line <maras'm avis'>. My
crude copy shows just enough space. It would be very odd for the author to
leap 3/4 of a line back to finish the word anyway.

DGK