From: stlatos
Message: 68425
Date: 2012-01-27
>I think the only semantic connection is 'wide, broad, spread out' w 'wide (field), earth (goddess)', such as Litavi: Gaul; Plataiaí G; pr,th[i]ví:- V S; ptsí = measure for fields Kamv; and formally the suffix is the very common "god-maker" *-xY-n.o- .
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> Von Planta supported the morphology *Patena:- with the Sabine gloss <terenum> 'molle' (cognate with, or borrowed from, the neuter of Greek <térenos> 'soft, smooth, delicate', more commonly <tére:n>), the Umbrian ethnonyms <Tesenakes>, later <Tesenocir> abl. pl. 'Tessenacis' (name of a city-gate, pl. tant.) and <Talenate> dat. sg. 'Talenati' (name of a decuvia), and some Latinized place-names possibly containing *-en- as a formant (Sarsina, Fulginia, Fu:cinus, Frusino:). This is admittedly a slim foundation for postulating *-eno- as a productive Italic deverbative. I would add Lat. <sarcina> 'bundle, pack', usually connected with <sarcio:> 'I mend, patch, repair', and possibly identical with <Sarsina>. This town was in Umbria, and the Umb. adverb <sarsite> 'wholly, publicly'(?) has been tentatively referred to Itc. *sarki:te:d 'sewn together' > 'collectively' > 'publicly' (Poultney, BTI 322). Lat. <patina> 'dish, platter' is usually taken as borrowed from Grk. <patáne:>, but <patera> 'shallow bowl' is considered native and referred to <pateo:>. Since <sarcina> is native Latin, <patina> could equally well be native, reflecting Itc. *patena:-, and formally identical to the Oscan goddess above. I identify Italic *-ena:- as the feminine of an admittedly rare PIE agential suffix *-enó- taking zero-grade of the root and reflected in Skt. <kr.p-aná-> 'lamenting, miserable'. Then PIE *ph1.t-enéh2-, Itc. *patena:- could mean 'the female who opens' or 'the object (with fem. gender) which spreads, broad dish, platter'. In Latin and Umbrian, perhaps the wide use of the second sense made renaming the goddess necessary to avoid irreverence, but not in Oscan.
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