Re: Latin merx

From: dgkilday57
Message: 66196
Date: 2010-06-12

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> Václav BLAŽEK, 'Mercurius et proximi', is worth a look:
>
> <http://www.safarmer.com/Indo-Eurasian/Mercurius.pdf>

Interesting paper. I think at least three distinct IE roots are involved in the material discussed. My comments go with the numbered points:

1(3). Probably 'fruitful' or 'productive' is a better English rendering of <fe:li:x> than 'bearer of felicity'.

2.3. These inscribed cup-fragments are discussed by Giacomelli (La lingua falisca, Firenze 1963, pp. 54-55). There are in fact 14 inscribed fragments (CIE 8036-8049). The full text <titoi mercui efiles> leaves no doubt about the interpretation, 'the aediles (dedicated this cup) to Titos Mercus'. There is no good reason to suppose that <mercui> is contracted from *mercvoi or *mercuv(e)joi. We are dealing with the dat. sg. of an /u/-stem. Several unconvincing explanations have been offered for the apparent use of a praenomen with a divine name. In my opinion <titoi> is not to be understood as a praenomen, but as a divine epithet 'leader, conductor' in the dat. sg. Likewise in the name Titus Tatius of the annalistic tradition, king of the Sabines and co-regent with Romulus, Titus is to be taken as the title 'Leader' rather than a praenomen. Development of the common praenomen Titus from such a title is easily understood. I have no further etymology beyond Italic. The Etruscan praenomen Tite appears to have been borrowed from Italic, rather than the other way around. The noun <titio:> 'firebrand' cited by Varro is perhaps that which leads in the dark. The scholiast on Perseus (1:20) says "titi sunt columbae agrestes". Possibly wild doves were perceived either as the leaders of seasons by their migration, or as the conductors of souls to the realm of the dead (whence the association of doves with mourning).

2.4. Oscan <mirikui> is clearly also the dat. sg. of an /u/-stem. I see no reason whatever to suppose that this divine name, found deep within Campania, was borrowed from Latium. Such a borrowing would have had to occur before Oscan words of this shape underwent pre-rhotic /e/-raising and post-rhotic anaptyxis, two features which make Oscan what it is. This name might as well have been inherited from Italic *merku-, like the Faliscan form. Only if one has an a-priori axe to grind does borrowing confer any advantage.

3. It makes no sense to argue that Mercuri(u)s and Mirqurios "represent probably the gentile names", merely because there are Latin gentile names (or, as I prefer, gentilicia) ending in -urius. <Lemure:s>, gen. <Lemurum>, is a consonant-stem, nor does <augur>, a personified /es/os/-stem like <Venus>, have anything to do with the suffix in <Mercurius>. Rhotacism in this suffix is indeed likely, in which case we can compare the Sabine place-name <Blandusia>, whose base is probably *gWlh2n-d- 'acorn' (Latin <glans>, gen. <glandis>; Greek <bálanos> is the thematic by-form *gWl.h2n-o-). Presumably this place was 'abounding in acorns' and if <Mercurius> is parallel, the name means 'abounding in wares' or the like, from the consonant-stem *merk- (Lat. <merx>), not the /u/-stem *merku-.

Like *Mercus, the Latin theonyms <Sancus> and <Ja:nus> can also be inflected as /u/-stems, and this is probably the original formation. The adjective <Sanqua:lis> 'pertaining to Sancus' shows that <Sancus> had a labiovelar, but it cannot represent an original /o/-stem *sankWos. The old stem must be *sankWu-, just as <quercus> 'oak' continues Italic *kWerkWu-. The gentilicium <Sangurius> from Picenum can hardly have anything to do with <Sancus>; more likely it is related to the cognomen <Sanga>. As for the variant <Sangua:lis> 'pertaining to Sancus', this can be explained by confusion of <Sanqua:lis> with <sanguis>, <sanguen> 'blood'.

4. I prefer Buck's rendering of Oscan <amiricatud> on the Tabula Bantina as 'without remuneration' to Vetter's 'handelsmäßig'. The latter assumes that *ad-m- would be assimilated to *am-m- in Oscan and written <am-> here. Direct evidence is lacking but other Oscan inscriptions have <adfust> and <adpúd> without assimilation of the same prefix to a labial, and in Umbrian *ad-m- becomes *ar^-m- as shown by <Ar^mune>, <arsmor>, <arsmatiam>, etc., just as *ad-p- becomes *ar^-p- in <ar^peltu>, <ar^putrati>. Buck takes the prefix in <amiricatud> as the negative *an-. It is difficult to analyze the Oscan acc. sg. <amirikum> this way, since it appears in a list of positive qualities and apparently means 'business, occupation, livelihood' vel sim., so Wallace takes the protoform as *amb-merkom. But however the prefixes are identified, again there is no good reason to assume borrowing of these or related words from Latium.

Scholars supporting an Etruscan origin for Latin <merx> and its relatives include Hofmann (not Walde!) and Watkins, who are not specialists in the field of Etruscan loanwords in Latin. Among scholars who have published monographs in this field, such as Ernout, Breyer, and Watmough, I am not aware of any support for deriving <merx> this way. While it is possible for Latin to borrow Etruscan nouns as consonant-stems (such as <satelles> 'bodyguard, attendant' from Etr. <zatlath>, probably 'axe-striker' vel sim., referring to the lictors of Tarquinius Superbus), there is no parallel for borrowing the totality of *merk-, *merku-, *merka:-, and *merke:d- from Etruscan. Since no evidence for a root *merk- can be extracted from Etruscan texts anyway, such a borrowing hypothesis explains nothing and should be discarded.

5.1. The variation between the Old Prussian types *Marka(:)potis and *Marka(:)polis can hardly reflect mere scribal error, and von Grienberger's ad-hoc metathesis is unconvincing as a starting point. More likely distinct second elements are represented here, with the *-potis form properly 'Erdherr', and the *-polis form 'Erdleute', the latter perhaps derived from *pelh1- 'to fill'. For the first element, Stender is on the money with Lithuanian <markà> 'retting pit', etc. The connection is easily understood if we presume that the native Baltic religion recognized water-filled pits as portals to the other world. The Baltic word could then be corradical with Slavic *morkU- 'swamp' (both /o/-grade) and Gaulish <mercasius> 'swamp' (/e/-grade). If the root had the form *merhk- (with unidentified laryngeal) perhaps we can bring in Lat. <marce:re> 'to wither, decay, be rotten' and Gaul. *braco- 'swamp, mire' (Italian <braco>, <brago> 'mud', French <brai> 'pitch, resin') as zero-grade derivatives. Probably Welsh <brag-wair> 'swamp-hay' and <brag-wellt> 'swamp-grass', names of certain plants, also belong here. It is not clear whether Gaul. <bracis> 'cereal' (We. <brag>) represents the same root (originally cereal growing in a swamp?) but on semantic grounds such a root probably has nothing to do with <Mercurius> and <merx>.

5.2-3. The Hittite forms suggest a root *merkW-, apparently consistent with the Indo-Iranian forms, but unrelated to the other material in this paper. It might however be connected with Greek <márpto:> 'I grasp, hold, catch' and <marptís> 'seizer, ravisher'. Sickness and death can certainly be personified as such. It is unfortunate that the Anatolian attestations allow no solid deductions about the sense of the root.

6.1. If Puhvel is correct in connecting Lat. <merx> with Hitt. <mark->, the original sense of the root could well be 'to apportion, distribute'. This is not fatal to my theory of the origin of Gmc. *marxa-, Celtic *marko- 'horse'. Rather than 'fit to be handled', Volcan *mórko- could have signified 'suitable for distribution', referring to the type of horse a king would provide for his cavalry, or a wealthy man would provide as a gift. But in this case it would not be advisable to connect Skt. <mr.s'áti>, Greek <dusbrákanos>, and the like with this group.

In connection with my conjecture about the direction of borrowing, it is worth noting that the only Gallo-Latin place-names with this element cited by Dottin (La langue gauloise, Paris 1920, p. 86) are Marcodurum (Duren) and Marcomagus (Markmagen), both in the vicinity of Tolbiacum (Zülpich) on the left side of the Rhine, on the land into which the Ubii were transplanted. Already in Caesar's time the Ubii were "Gallicis moribus assuefacti" (B.G. 4:3) and if the Gauls indeed borrowed Gmc. *marxa-, perhaps it originally signified a type of prized horse which they obtained in trade from the Ubii. (But I doubt this second conjecture will meet with approval from our long-rangers.)

DGK