Spepondi

On pg. 410 I mention that Aulus Gellius (6.9) attests the form spepondī as an archaic but still classical variant for the regular spopondī. I should also have noted that the e-reduplicated form is also attested inscriptionally in the form SPEPODI in the wax tablets discovered in Moregine near Pompeii and composed by C. Novius Eunus (1st cent. CE, 15.2.11, 16.3.3, 17.3.5, 18.3.7). Interestingly some of these documents (15 and 18) exist  in two versions, one by Eunus himself with many spelling "errors", and one by a professional scribe with correct spellings. In the case of this particular word the scribe uses the standard form spopondi at 15.5.9, 18.5.16.

See Adams, J. N. 1990. The Latinity of C. Novius Eunus. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 82:227–247.

Umbrian-inspired jewelry

Haven't found any new mistakes or missing refs. recently so I thought I'd post this beautiful piece of Umbrian-inspired jewelry made by Paula Ardis Weiss of Peoria, Arizona, AKA my sister. I see a few real words in the last line and the bird must be a peica mersta!

Addendum

An invaluable resource for the study of the language of Latin inscriptions from Rome (De Gruyter 2006):

CIL VI. Inscriptiones urbis Romae Latinae. pars VI, fasc. III. Grammatica quaedam erroresque quadratarii et alias rationes scribendi notabiliores. Composuit A. E. GORDON† adiutante J. S. GORDON†. Auxerunt et edenda curaverunt U. JANSEN et H. KRUMMREY. 

Two Addenda from Solin

On pg. 202 fn. 33 I give a list of some Republican epigraphical examples of the alternate consonant-stem gen. sg. ending -os or -us, but I didn't know that according to Solin 1991:354 forms in -us are found as late as the the Augustan period, e.g. AERVS (CIL 4.2440, 3 BCE), CAESARVS (i.e. Octavian, CIL XI 6721.13).

On pg. 213–4 I discuss the replacement of the o-stem locative for place names by the ablative and note that this replacement begins to turn up in the late 1st century BCE, however, I didn't say anything about the replacement of the a-stem ending -ae by -a. Löfstedt, Syntactica II, pg. 76 claimed that the ending -ae hung on tenaciously for many more centuries and dates the first certain cases of the locatival ablative for place names to the 5th century.  But Solin 1997:143 points out that epigraphical examples are known from at least the 1st century CE, e.g. Q. VIBIVS P. F. QVI(RINA) KANIO TREBVLA, where some editors erroneously emend to TREBVLAE. Whether Löfstedt's point in modified form is still valid requires further investigation.

Solin, H. 1991. Analecta epigraphica. (CXLIII. Zu republikanischen Inschrfifen 146–54). Arctos 25:139–56.

———. 1997. Analecta epigraphica. (CLXVIII. Ablativ statt lokativ in Städtnamen 142) Arctos 31:135–147.

Etruscan o

ᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟᛟOn pg. 27 I wrote "Since Etruscan did not have a contrast between /o/ and /u/ they eliminated the sign." This sentence needs some elaboration.  First of all, archaic Etruscan alphabets do retain the letter as a dead letter.  See Wallace 2008:17–18. Second, while it is true that there was no contrast between /o/ and /u/ in Etruscan it now seems pretty clear that the Etruscans did have a way of writing /o/. In addition to the well known case of the bilingual inscription from Pesaro which has the form frontac (Um 1.7, 1st BCE), there is now also a form cnovies in an 5th century BCE inscription for Civita Castellana (CIE II, 1, 5). The inscription reads cnovi{e}ies mi "I am of cnovie". Given its location the inscription is probably recording a Faliscan praenomen—hence the attempt to represent the "exophoneme" /o/—but mi and the genitive ending -es shows the text was Etruscan.  The shape of the o in both these examples is like a vertical fish (see this image of the Pesaro bilingual here.) and this is precisely the shape that o has in the (indirectly) Etruscan-derived Runic alphabet as illustrated above.

See Maras, D. F. 2009. Note in margine al CIE II, 1, 5. Studi etruschi 74:237–47.

Addendum and Corrigenda

To the basic bibliography for Tocharian given on pg. 21 fn. 79 add Malzahn, Melanie. 2010. The Tocharian Verbal System. Leiden: Brill. This book will be an invaluable resource for years to come. It provides an overview and synchronic and diachronic analysis of the categories of the Tocharian verb and a lexicon of the attested Averbo of each Tocharian verbal root. Checking my index against Malzahn I uncovered a few imprecise statements and errors on my part.

On pg. 82 as a cognate of luō I cite the TA present stem lunā- with the gloss 'release' ('send' would have been better). According to Malzahn p. 854 the present stem is not actually attested in TA although it was restored as lun(āmäs) in one fragment by Sieg and Siegling.  The TB present is the Class III form lyewetär, which I should have cited instead.

On pg. 407 as the cognate of Lat. escit I cite a non-existent TB ske.  The 3rd pl. of the copula is indeed skente < *h1s-sk'onto, but the singular is ste which may come from *h1s-sk'e-to. See Pinault 2008:642 for more details.

On pg. 408 fn. 31 I discuss whether Lat. cūdō and TB kaut- 'split' can be reconciled via *kewh2dhe-, but Malzahn prefers to analyze the Tocharian form as a denominative in which case the question is moot.  In the last sentence in that note change the possible proto-form of kaut- from *keh2dh- (a typo) to *keh2udh-.

On pg. 413 fn. 13 following others I compared Lat. lēgī to TB lyāka 'I saw' but see Malzahn p. 838–9 for some of the difficulties involved in that comparison.

Addendum

Apologies for failure to blog for last three weeks.  I was co-teaching (with Jeremy Rau) a two-week seminar in Greek comparative grammar and Greek dialects.  In the course of preparing for that class I got my first good look at the volume A History of Ancient Greek:  From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, edited by A.-F. Christidis with the assistance of Maria Arapoloulou and Maria Chriti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   This book was first published in Greek in 2001 and translated by various hands in 2007.  Overall, the book is similar in conception to the Bakker volume, but more extensive (the first subsection on "the language phenomenon" seems out of place to me).  I have read only a fraction of the work, but some standout chapters are the ones by Claude Brixhe (History of the alphabet: Some guidelines for avoiding oversimplifications) and Julian Mendez Dosuna (on Doric and Aeolic).  Particularly relevant for Latin are the chapters on Greek and Latin contact by Robert Coleman and on evidence for Vulgar Latin from modern Greek dialects by N. Katsanis.