-le

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Morpheme
Language: Raetic, Etruscan
Type: inflectional
Function: pertinentive

Attestation: azile, aθivnuale, )auþile, eθunnuale, esθuale, θaθivnuale, kaszrinuale, ketanuvale, laśanuale, )le, metlainile, )nuale, nuþnuale, perkusiale, piθamnuale, sletile, φelvinuale


Commentary

Corresponding to the Etruscan pertinentive II (Rix 1985: 128, Wallace 2008: 47). Like the ablative, the pertinentive is built with genitive forms / adjectives of possession as base (Rix 1985: 127). The pertinentive is historically a locative to the genitive, hence the complex pertinentive endings reflect both those of genitive and locative (locatiuus genitiui in Eichner's terminology). The pertinentive II is based on the genitive II -l(a), historically -la: -la-i > -le. In this context, the auslauting (umlauted) vowel survived apocope (while being lost in the genitive).

-le appears as -ale after the patronymic suffix -nu, which is indeed the usual context for the pertinentive II in Raetic. See -l(a) and Rix 1985: 126 f. on the origin and phonotactic context of -al(e) in Etruscan. The motivation for -le instead of expected pertinentive I -si in the other cases, all arguably individual names ending in vowels, is unclear.

Bibliography