Latin mecum, tecum, etc.

[Douglas G Kilday]

petegray (15 Jun 2001) wrote:

>> I suppose -cum is a remnant of an older time when prepositions were either
>> postpositions or relatively mobile adverbs.

>Yes, so it is suggested.

>> Is there any obvious reason why -cum is the only instance of the archaic
>> system?

>It only occurs with personal pronouns, and nowhere else.  The most interesting
>suggestion I have heard is that it began with an avoidance of the sequence
>cunn-.  cum nobis could sound like forms of cunnus, from which comes the good
>English word cunnilingus.  Hence nobiscum, thence to other personal pronouns.

That's certainly ingenious, but it says more about the suggestor than it
does about the linguistics. A kid stashing his dirty pictures between the
pages of his Latin textbook, perhaps ...

It's much more plausible to regard -cum as the remnant of a formerly
widespread postpositive use of prepositions (sorry, I don't know how to
avoid this oxymoron). This usage is preserved better in p-Italic: e.g.
Umbrian <ukriper fisiu tutaper ikuvina> 'pro arce Fisia pro civitate
Iguvina', Oscan <vibieisen beriieis> 'in Vibiis Beriis'. Similarly, in Epic
Greek many prepositions may follow their objects, but in Attic prose only
<peri> may do so.

Noteworthy is the fact that <cunnus> is a 2nd-decl. feminine. This type
occurs commonly with names of trees, which suggests to me that <cunnus> was
originally a phytonym, referring to a species with hirsute foliage, which
acquired the secondary meaning 'pudendum muliebre'. OTOH Watkins refers
<cunnus> to *kutno- 'sheath' from *(s)keu- 'to cover', which is plausible
enough etymologically (cf. <vagina>) but fails to explain the gender. Lest
anyone think that "feminine parts acquire feminine gender" (we've been
through this), <saltus> lit. 'forest' is a 4th-decl. masculine, and it's
used colloquially as 'pudendum muliebre'.

DGK