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On Some Animal Names in Italic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Roland G. Kent
Roland G. Kent*
Affiliation:
University or Pennsylvania
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Extract

Heretofore, in etymological investigations, in the Indo-European field at least, several processes have been overworked, being used to explain quite too many instances of irregularity. These include the following: (1) ablaut variation within the permissible grades, but without any indication of the reason for the variation; (2) cognation with words found in remote branches of the Indo-European family, but without any near congeners; (3) special phonetic laws, set up to explain some two or three examples, and so narrowly defined that they can apply to very few examples.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 1926, pp. 184 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © 1926 by Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 A. Meillet, Introd. à l'étude comp. d. langues indo-eur.6 343.

2 Über Reimwortbildungen im Arischen und Altgriechischen, 258 pp. [1914].

3 Language: its Nature, Development, and Origin, 312-13 [1922].

4 It seems to be rather better represented in the recent [1926] fifth edition of F. Stolz Lateinische Grammatik: Laut- und Formenlehre, revised by M. Leumann, in I. v. Müller's Handbuch d. class. Altertumswissenschaft II 2.

5 It seems needless to give long lists of the cognate words, which may be found under the appropriate caption words in A. Walde, Lat. etym. Wörterb., and in E. Boisacq, Dict. étym. de la langue grecque. In the same works, ample references to the secondary literature also will be found.

6 Krit. Jahresb. ü. d. Fortschritt d. rom. Phil. 5. 1. 67. A different contamination is found in Slavic, with a prefixed w: OCS vepri, Lett, vepris ‘boar’. This is derived presumably by contamination with the word seen in Lith. veszis ‘calf,’ Lett, versis ‘ox', Skt. vša- ‘bull’, etc., Latin verrēs ‘boar’; as the Baltic words from this root are i-stems, it is possible that they have contributed to vepri not merely the initial consonant but also the shift from o-stem to i-stern. Pedersen, Kuhns Zeitschrift f. vergl. Sprachforschung 38. 311-12, gives no real light, as Meillet says in his Etudes sur l'êtym. et le vocab. du vieux-slave 410.

7 But cf. W. Schulze, z. Gesch. lat. Eigennamen 111, 124-5: von Grienberger Indogerm. Forschungen 23. 348-9.

8 R. von Planta, Gram. d. oskisch-umbrischen Dialekte, 1. 300, 336, 548, where earlier references are given.

9 This interpretation appears in K. Brugmann, Grundriss d. vergl. Gram. d. indogerm. Sprachen I2 679 [1897], which seems to be its first occurrence.

10 Brugmann, Grundriss II1 2. 727-8, II2 1. 527 n., makes ∗hanser- a contamination of ∗hans- and ∗hanes-, occurring in different parts of the paradigm; A. Ernout, Eléments dialectaux du vocabulaire latin 109-10, regards the -er as suffixal, of the same origin as -ar(e), and compares NE cat-er-waul and gand-er.

11 H. Jacobsohn, KZ 46. 55-6.

12 The same point recurs in the discussion of canis and of lupus, later in this article cf. footnote 29 for references.

13 The case ending has been drawn into the stem in spēr-âre, denominative to spē-s (assisted perhaps by the influence of jūs jūrāre, F. Stolz, Lat. Gram.5, revised by M. Leumann, 246); in vīr-ēs, plural to vī-s (assisted by the analogy of mōs mōris, according to Leumann-Stolz, l.c.; or by that of vir?); possibly in pūbēs pūber, gen. pūber-is, cf. pūbes, gen. pūbis.

14 Despite R. von Planta, Gram. d. osk.-umbr. Dialekte 1. 283; C. D. Buck, Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian 65.

15 Instances of canēs are listed in Neue-Wagener, Formenlehre d. lat. Spr. 3. 1.284-5. On the gender of canis and canēs cf. id. 920-1. It is wrong to regard canis as normally masc. and canēs as normally fern, in Latin; F. Sommer, Krit. Erläuterungen z. lat. Laut- u. Formenlehre 192-4.

16 H. Jacobsohn, KZ 46. 55-66 [1914]; against his view, Sommer, Krit. Erl. l.c. Though the long vowel in canīcula might reasonably have a merely metrical basis, as Sommer argues, the gender of the word is decisive, for in Latin the diminutives have the gender of their primitives; Brugmann, IF 19. 215-16, Leumann-Stolz, Lat. Gram.5 215. But the abl. sing, is always cane, and the gen. pl. always canum, both distinctive consonantalstem formations, so that the i-stem influence is limited.

17 On this loss of w, cf. Sommer, Hdb. 2-3 157-8.

18 Cf. footnote 12.

19 Op. cit., s.v. caenum.

20 Parerga 1. 251 ff. (not accessible to me; quoted at second-hand).

21 IF 39.66-7 [1921].

22 Varro, LL 9. 74 ut est cista cistula cistella et canis catulus catellus. Varro, LL 5. 99 catulus a sagaci sensu et acuto, <ut Cato> Catulus; hinc canis, nisi quod ut. tuba ac cornua [quod], Signum cum dent[e], canere dicuntur, quod hic item et noctulucus in custodia et in venando signum voce dat, canis dictus. Cicero, ND 2. 14. 38 Chrysippus …. omnia in perfectis et maturis docet esse meliora, ut in equo quam in eculeo, in cane quam in catulo, in viro quam in puero ….

23 IF 21. 167-9 [1907]; Indog. Ablaut §37 [1900]. Despite Walde's objections, Wtb. s.v. canis, I feel that Greek and (Boeotian) ‘woman’, Greek and Skt. cakram ‘wheel’, are fair parallels.

24 But not so in dīvos, hiems, perhaps in mel.

25 Walde, op. cit., s.v., with lit.; Fröhde, Bezzenbergers Beiträge zur Kunde der indog. Sprachen, 14.107 [1889]. There seems to be no decisive evidence whether labio-velars lost the labialization in Latin, or in Italic, after u, cf. Brugmann, Grundriss I2 604; if they did so lose it, then if the loss was primitive Italic or general Italic, lupus, even as a Sabine word, must have got its p by the influence of volpēs.

26 Brugmann, Grundriss I2 598-600; von Planta, Gram. 1. 331 ff.; Sommer. Hdb. 2-3 188. But I do not accept Sommer's reconstruction ∗wluq wos for lupus.

27 Spiegel, KZ 13. 366; Bersu, Die Gutturalen u. ihre Verbindung mit v im Lateinischen 143; Zupitza, Die germanischen Gutturale 16-17.

28 For the metathesis, cf. Brugmann, Grundriss I2 260.

29 Brugmann, Grundriss II2 1. 214, 216, 219; Lindsay, Latin Language 342-3; Sommer, Hdb. 2-3 387. But cf. Sommer, Krit. Erl. 192-4.

30 A phenomenon of disputed nature: cf. Sommer, Hdb.2-3 371-2; Leumann-Stolz, Lat. Gram.5 259, with lit.

31 Cf. F. Kluge, Etym. Wrtb. d. deutschen Sprache 8 s.v. Wolf.

32 Cf. Walde, op. cit., s.v. lupus.

33 Despite W. Schulze, KZ 45. 287-8, who follows Zeyss, KZ 20. 450-2 [1872]; Sommer, Kr. Erl. 192.

34 Cf. Kluge, l.c.; despite O. Schrader's suggestion, Reallexikon d. indog. Altertumskunde 1 259, s.v. Fuchs (which he omits in the second edition, p. 336).

35 At least as long ago as 1886, in Brugmann, Grundriss I1 324.

36 The existence of this suffix in Umbrian is assured also by cabriner ‘caprini’.

37 So Leumann-Stolz, LaL Gram.5 224.

38 Ib. 225.

39 Cf. von Planta 1. 335-6; Buck §149 a. Neither cognation with Skt. chāgā ‘goat’ (suggested by Buck as a possible etymological justification of the h-) nor an influence of the root hab- ‘to have’ (tentatively suggested by von Planta) seems at all likely.

40 Leumann-Stolz, op. cit. 224; I had already taught this view before their volume appeared.