Re: Ablative case in toponyms

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
> In general,
> in the northern part of France,
> from the Loire River Northward, (to the Rhine)
> that is to say, the place where P-celt Gauls are massively attested

In what way 'massively attested'?

> (Let us put aside this "Belgian" affair for a while)

I don't think you mean that.

> you often find the name of tribes under three forms :
>
> Nominative plural : tribe's name
> Accusative singular neuter : province's name
> Ablative-locative plural : capital's name
>
> Example : Pictav-i (tribe)
> Province : pictav-u > Poitou (territory possessed by the Pictavi)
> Capital : pictav-is > Poitiers (at the Pictavi's city/market)
>
> Most modern province capitals end with -s (coming down from
> ablative-locative plural) while the province often ends with a
> vowel. (from the accusative neuter) Bourges versus Berry, Angers
> versus Anjou (etc)
>
> It is not possible to make out if this traces back to Gaulish or
> LAtin because case markers are about the same in the two languages.
> In many cases, the Roman name has been replaced by the tribe's name.
> This is why I would consider probable that this traces back to
> Gaulish :
> it tends to erase Latin influence and show the fairly strong
> survival potential of GAulish under Roman occupation.
>
> In some cases, in compound names, you found genitive plural :
> in that case, the tribe's name and the defined name are separated by
> -or- or -eur- (from -orum)
> this is a rare case.

Actually, modifying adjectives derived from ethnonyms in City names
are in Latin in the gen.pl. with Celtic -um, not Latin -orum, eg
Augusta Vindelicum -> Augsburg. Hence Lutetia Parisum, not Parisorum,
and Somethingorother Torinum, not Torinorum, or they would be
*Parisieur and *Torinoro today.

> Some examples have been created when Germanic tribes began invaded
> the country so this proves a full declension system with many cases
> must have survived after the Roman Empire collapsed.

Nope. The ablative-locative plural may have survived only in place
names, as with the m. oblique in Dutch Den Haag and Den Bosch, and
some Danish placenames in originally dat.pl. -um.

> I don't know who first noticed this tribe + province + capital
> structure
> It is quite commonplace knowledge.
>
> Reims with -s also fits in the mould.
> And Paris as well.
>
> Amien-S < Ambian-IS
> Beauvai-S < Bellovac-IS
> Soisson-S < Suesson-IS
> Arra-S < Atrebat-IS
> LAngre-S < Lingon-IS

Or they could be Germanic plurals. What's the evidence for the -i- of
the posited -is?

> As we say in French, I don't want to "make the knife spin inside the
> wound"

You're too kind.

> Dear Torsten,
> this is one more heavy blow on this "non Celtic Belgian" hypothesis.

Why? Because you have proven that Belgic didn't have a
ablative-locative in -is?

Do you have other heavy blows?


Torsten