>meaning of clause 1 depends on how one analyses bionti. I thought at >first
it was the habitual present of 'to be' ("occur, there are") but >*bHijonti
'they beat' makes sense here, and is parallelled by robi$eti
>(= *pro- + *bHi:-s-e-ti, a sigmatic future) in clause 3.
I would tend to analyze bionti as *bhwi-onti (with typical Celtic loss of
medial -w-) - especially considering that biont-utu appears in Gaulish
(Larzac insc. - where the sense seems to be the subjunctive of "Be")and Mdl.
Breton has a preterite form biont. There is also a Gaulish form bissiet,
which Lambert analyzes as "shall be" (with -si- future). Of course, there is
the possibility that ro-biseti and bissiet come from PIE *bheidh- or *bhidh-
instead.
>However, the primary meaning of *bHei(x)- in most IE branches is 'hit,
>beat, kill' rather than 'reap, gather (harvest)'. Correct me if I'm >wrong,
but Celtic languages typically use reflexes of *met- to express >the latter
sense.
Yuo would be correct concerning *met- (as in Welsh Medi "/carve" - as in the
suffix -bio in the Gaulish word uidu-bion "cup" (lterally
"hewn/carved-wood"). There is also a Welsh noun bid (from *bhei-t-eH2)
meaning "cut hedge."
>tecametina$ is Acc.pl. of a word clearly derived from *dekam-, cf. the
Acc.sg. tecametam in >line 10, which Meid translates 'tithe'. 'Amount' for
tecametina seems too vague. I'd be inclined to >reserve the more concrete
technical meaning 'tithe, tenth part (in tax collecting)' for *dekametina
>and to translate *dekameta simply as '(one) tenth' (Gaulish decametos means
'10th', and there is >a perfect parallel in Slavic: dese,tina 'tithe',
dese,ta 'tenth'). The ending -tus in tatus looks plural >to me, as in
Gaulish.
The regular Gaulish word for tithe (known from several dedicatory
inscriptions) was *decanta (acc. decantem from *dek-mt-). Meid has the -tus
endings as indicating the 3rd pers. future imperative - thus tatus may stand
for dadus or datus ("shall give" PIE *do-tod). Note that there are also
Gaulish verbs ending in -us that seem to have a preterite quality.
>The phrase $omei eni-tousei contains the Loc.sg. of $os tousos (toutos?) --
a masculine noun. >The meaning 'tribe' (= *teutos) seems plausible. So how
about this version, with arsna as some >sort of animal:
>... when they kill arsnas,
>when the custaicos brings arsnas in,
>which he should kill either outside or within the enclosure
>of them a tenth part they shall turn over as a tribute for the tribe
I don't know about tousos=teutos - I would need to see more evidence for
Celtiberian shift of -t- to -s-. Meid has the word as a locative of
*eni-tousa "inner area," with no explanation of -tousa. I will need to do
some more research on arsnas - maybe something will turn up in Insular or
Gaulish sources.
-C. Gwinn