-l(a)
| Morpheme | |
|---|---|
| Language: | Raetic |
| Type: | inflectional |
| Meaning: | 'of/for' |
| Function: | genitive |
|
| |
| Attestation: | none
|
Commentary
The attestations of the Raetic equivalent of the Etruscan genitive II (Rix 1985: 126 f., Wallace 2008: 46) are somewhat dubious. The existence of a genitive in l would be expected because of the use of the pertinentive II -le for which it historically provided the base. The genitive II poses some difficulties even in Etruscan. In Archaic Etruscan inscriptions, the ending appears as -a (examples in Wallace). Seeing as -l must be historical, being part of the pertinentive and ablative endings, and also appearing in Neo-Etruscan, its interim disappearance remains to be explained. Most probably, l was lost in this position (indicating a velar allophone), and restituted by comparison with the ablative and pertinentive endings. The second irregularity of the genitive II is its allomorph -al (with stems not originally ending in -a) in Neo-Etruscan. The context of this allomorph appears to be determined both phonotactically (stems in -l) and semantically (names); Rix (p. 126) assumes that a is a generalised stem vowel. Cp. the contexts of -le vs. -ale of the pertinentive II. The pre-apocope auslaut a can, like i in the genitive I -s(i), be inferred from the form of the secondary endings of the pertinentive and ablative.
While the genitive I -s(i) is very well documented in Raetic, no instances of the genitive II – in any form – can be securely identified. The Archaic Etruscan form -a can essentially be argued for any word ending in -a – this is in most cases reflected in TIR to simplify reviewing the cases. The only possible case of a genitive in -(a)l is kaial on PA-1, somewhat modified by the word aχvil (with stem-final l) appearing in the same inscription.
On the possibility of genitives originally being adjectives of possession, enabling them to serve as bases for cases (pertinentive, ablative), see Rix 1985: 127.
