Re: masters and slaves again

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Any chance the terms "Argaragantes" (incl. variants) and
> > > "Limigantes" could be understood as latinized versions of Gothic
> > > plurals "argaragans" and "limigans" (with the first portion
> > > being of Iranic provenance, as explained by Francesco Brighenti
> > > in message 64571) ? (I'm looking at various texts dealing with
> > > Danubian area events in the 4th century).
> > >
> >
> > Unlikely. -ans is the m.pl.acc. ending, not nom. I don't think
> > there are any examples of Latin -antes from Germanic *-ans.
>
> ****GK: What about this example of "weak declension" nominative
> plural? Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language /at
> "guma"/ I was imagining a Roman hearing a Goth lamely describing the
> Limigantes as "limigans" and 'correcting" this to Limigantes (since
> Limigans would sound like a singular form).****

The Germanic weak declension corresponds to the Latin 3rd declension n-stems, for the same cases of the Latin cognate of guma:
sg. homo, hominem, hominis, homini
pl. homines, homines, hominum, hominis
I think that would be the solution for someone translating between the two languages.

However, in Venetic the -Vnt- suffix seems to have been used, cf the river names Drawa, Drama, Drau vs. Derwent, Druentia, Drwęca, and the -Vnd- suffix of many Danish island names.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/5219
It occurs in the genitive of the Greek version of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroclitic#Heteroclitic_stems
namely as *-n.t- > -at- (´υδωρ, ´υδατος "water"), and in Hittite it is an individuating suffix independent of the inflection system. Also you find it (my analysis)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65461
in the common word for "thousand" in the Germanic, Baltic, Slavic and Baltic Finnic languages, where the geographical distribution might tell us something about the origin of the suffix in this region.


Torsten