At 1:50:21 PM on Friday, October 22, 2004, alex wrote:
> Joao wrote:
>> Perhaps -o is the Latin n-theme (-o, -onis), translating
>> the Gothic n-theme (-a, -ins)
LVIII. Antequam ergo de Audefledam subolem haberet,
naturales ex concubina, quas genuisset adhuc in Moesia,
filias, unam nomine Thiudigoto et aliam Ostrogotho. quas mox
in Italiam venit, regibus vicinis in coniugio copulavit, id
est unam Alarico Vesegotharum et aliam Sigismundo
Burgundzonorum.
<Co:pula:re> takes the dative: <Alarico> and <Sigismundo>
are simply datives of <Alaricus> and <Sigismundus>,
respectively. I'm not going to dig through to check the
other examples, but I suspect that these <-o> names are all
either feminine n-stems, like <Thiudigoto>, or inflected
Latinized masculine names in <-us>.
In short, Alex is probably chasing a mirage.
> Interesting appears a reduction of "nd" if one can
> consider that the names of Berimud, Thorismud are the same
> compositions as in the names of Gesimundus, Hunimundus,
> Tharasmundo
This is by no means certain. There were two deuterothemes,
one akin to Gothic <mo:ths> 'Mut, Zorn', the other to Gothic
*<mund-> 'Hand, Schutz'. They started to be conflated quite
early, but it's possible that in Jordanes they're still
accurately distinguished.
> About names which ends in "-a", one find them even between
> the first kings (Hisarna) but later too (Amalaberga).
<Amalaberga> is a Latinized feminine name; the Gothic
original would have had <-bergo>.
> Question: how usual was in IE-culture to give names to men
> which ends in "-a"?
Gothic masculine n-stems have nominatives in /-a/; feminine
<-o:n>-stems have nominatives in /-o:/. Thus, you get
Gothic masculine names in <-a> and feminine names in <-o>,
if the final stems are weak; I believe that this is also
true in Burgundian and in East Germanic generally.
Brian