The taurus problem

p. 113

Remove taurus example from main text. and add fn.

taurus ‘bull’ would be a good example of *au̯ since its cognates definitely reflect that diphthong (Gk. ταῦρος, Alb. ter, OCS turŭ ‘aurochs’ SCr. tȗr ‘bull’, Lith. taũras ‘aurochs’, OPr. tauris ‘bison’, Lusit. taurom (Cabeço das Fráguas)), and in fact the Balto-Slavic intonations make it probable that the word has an au̯ of non laryngeal origin. But taurus contravenes another Latin sound change namely that *-Vu̯RV- metathesizes to -VRu̯V- (see p. xxx). It is probable therefore that taurus, like bōs, is a Sabellic loanword. The word is attested in both Osc. ταυρομ  (Lu 25 = ImIt Vibo 2) and Umb. toru acc. pl. (VIb 43) and well represented in Sabellic place names like Taurasia (mentioned as a place in Samnium in the epitaph of Scipio Barbatus), and Taurania (present-day Pagani, Salerno).

See Poccetti 2014:347.

Pocetti, Paolo. 2014. “L’ ‘identità variabile’ dell’Italia preromana: tradizioni, ideologie e loro riflessi moderni.” In Da Italìa a Italia. Le radici di un’identità. Atti del cinquantunesimo convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia, 321­–59. Taranto: Istituto per la Storia e l’Archeologia della Magna Grecia.

p. 170  Replace B with:

Lat. taurus ‘bull’ does not undergo this sound change and give the expected †taruus. Therefore taurus probably is a loanword, perhaps from Sabellic *tauros. See p. xxx. Interestingly the Celtic cognates do reflect a *taru̯os (Gaul. taruos a divine name, OIr. tarb ‘bull’, MW tarw ‘bull’, Celtiberian tarvoduresca (HEp 2001:628), an adjective derived from a town *tarvodurom vel sim.). Since there is no parallel sound change in Celtic, the form of this word is usually explained as the result of the influence of the Celtic word for ‘deer’ *karu̯os (MW carw etc.)

Second Edition Now Available!

You can purchase the expanded and corrected 2nd edition (2020) at Beech Stave Press for 85$. It's bigger, it's better. The cover image is J. M. Turner's painting of the Lago di Nemi.

Addenda to pp. 15, 503

To the basic references for Latin on pg. 15, n. 34 add Willms 2013. This book covers the historical phonology and morphology of Greek and Latin, but also has a good sketch of ancient grammatical theory, an overview of some modern approaches to Linguistics, external histories of Greek and Latin, chapters on the later histories of Greek and the Romance languages and on the influence of Latin and Romance on German and English.

To the resources for Vulgar Latin on pg. 503 add Adams 2013, although that categorization hardly does justice to Adams's  latest magnum opus.

Adams, J. N. 2013. Social variation and the Latin language. Cambridge: cambridge University Press.

Willms, Lothar. 2013. Klassische Philologie und Sprachwissenschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Review of Language and Ritual in Sabellic Italy

A very long review of my other book, Language and Ritual in Sabellic Italy, by Gerhard Meiser has just appeared in Kratylos 58 2013:33–46.

katá ~ cada

p. 3. B, 1: The explanation of the sociolinguistic and historical situation behind Sp. cada uno and OFr. che(d)un ‘each’ from Gk. katá is not correct.  Gk. katá in its distributive sense was borrowed into Latin in the 3^rd /4^th century and appears in the Vulgate (cata mane mane ‘every morning’, Ez. 46.14) and in the Peregrinatio Egeriae (semper cata pascha ‘every Easter’).  It is not particularly associated with Southern France—the idiom is also found in Portuguese, Logudorese, and various forms of Italian—so connection with the Greek of Massilia is unlikely.  There are, however, better examples, which make the same point, i.e that linguistic evidence confirms the presence of Greek speakers in Southern France in Antiquity: For example, Occ. caliourno ‘mooring line’ from Gk. kálōs ‘rope’ and empurar ‘to fan a flame’ from Gk pỹr ‘fire’.  Fr. dôme ‘dome’ borrowed from OOcc. *doma ‘cupola’  (inferred from modern domo) is from Gk. dôma ‘house’, which survives nowhere else in Romance. See Wartburg 1969:18–21 and for dôme Paris 1895.

Paris, G. 1894. “Fr. dôme.” Romania 24:274–6.

Wartburg, Walter von. 1969. Évolution et structure de la langue française. 9^th ed. Bern: Francke.

Shane Hawkins, Studies in the Language of Hipponax

A plug for Shane Hawkins, Studies in the Language of Hipponax.

Some corrections relating to Italian and its dialects

Roberto Battisti alerts me to some problematic/incorrect citations or arguments relating to some Italian and dialectal Italian forms.

p. 130, n. 38: The Italian form giunto is cited as evidence for a long ū before nkC as if from < *iūnktŭm, but this is incorrect. In Florentine Tuscan an *ọ from Lat. *ŭ is raised before an n plus velar, or palatal or before palatal ñ. In the case of giunto, the u probably originates in the present giungere. Cf. Tusc. ungere ~ unto, mungere ~ munto, pungere ~ punto. Southern Tuscan preserves ọ (Senese giọnto). See Rohlfs 1966:91. The best Romance evidence for length before nk are the reflexes of quīn(c)tus which always reflect a long ī: It. quinto, Sp. quinto, OFr. quint 'fifth'.

p. 372 n. 44: I wrote “Standard Ital. venti has borrowed the root vowel of trenta, but Sicil. still has vinti.” but Proto-Romance *i and *ẹ merge as i in Sicilian and therefore the Sicilian form does not illustrate the point. For *vīnti in the Italian dialects Cf. Old Senese vinti, and Venetian vinti See Rohlfs 1966:73.

p. 507: Add Bolognese amiga to the empty cell in the table illustrating the Northern Italian reflex of Lat. amīca.