The word-by-word translation of ipa ama hen is itself very easy. Each of these words is found many times in other inscriptions and so their combined translation is undebatable as 'which is forth'. The first word is the relative pronoun ipa meaning '(he/she) who' or '(it) which', the second is the presentive form of am 'to be', and the third is an adverb meaning 'forth' or 'ahead'. The problem that was stumping me was not this phrase's translation per se but its exact semantic context in the larger inscription. Although the text has no punctuation aside from dots occasionally dividing up words, I'm able to parse this full sentence:
Sleleθ caru tezan fuśleri tesnś teiś Raśneś ipa ama hen.
Let's break this down by first identifying some of the easier words here. As I said, ipa ama hen means conclusively 'which is forth'. But Etruscanists are also generally aware that caru is a transitive participle meaning 'made'; tezan means 'cippus' (see Paleoglot: The Etruscan word 'tezan'); tesnś is a declined form of tesiam ~ tesian 'sacrifice'; teiś is the directive form of ta 'that, the'; and Raśneś is likewise the directive form of Raśna 'Etruria'. What's also interesting here is that tesnś teiś Raśneś must constitute a meaningful noun phrase in itself, with at least the last two words declined in the same directive case in -is (deceptively similar to the type-I genitive ending -(a)s). This hunch is luckily confirmed by the same phrase repeated further down in the inscription but entirely in locative forms instead: tesne Raśne cei.
Fleshing out the above sentence with these cross-correlated values and applying a consistent grammatical analysis to the rest, we end up with a decent partial translation:
Sleleθ caru tezan fuśleri tesnś teiś Raśneś ipa ama hen.
'In (a) slela (the) cippus (was) made for (the) fuśil of the sacrifice to [the] Etruria which is forth.'
Now perhaps you see what was stumping me: To what exactly does 'which is forth' refer? To the glory of Etruria? To the animal sacrifice? To the stone cippus on which it's written? What? Staring at the sentence for a while though, I realized that this can be answered very easily by noting that ipa is declined in the nominative case. If it were referring to either tesnś or teiś Raśneś, then we couldn't expect ipa but rather a non-nominative form such as *ipeś. We must match this pronoun with the grammatical subject of the sentence, which happens to be tezan 'cippus'.
This now entirely makes sense. It's simply the cippus 'which is forth'. The text, as is typical of classical inscriptions like this, is referring to itself. As a record of a ritual offering to the gods, this neatly inscribed stone slab would be positioned ahead of any reader who stumbles upon it. Of course, now, the artifact has been ripped from its original context and purpose, having originally been intended to permanently mark a sacred plot of land. The meaning of the rest of the words might then be elucidated by educated guesses: *slela = 'quarry' & *fuśil = 'record'.
NOTES
[1] George Hempl translated ipa ama hen naper XII as 'By means of this pail portion out twelve wild boars.' (see link) while Ilse Nesbitt Jones exhibits modern lunacy with ipa ama hen naper XII = 'If (it) is at one with Offspring 12 [...]' in Five texts in Etruscan: early Gothic language of Tyrrhenians and ancient Jutes (2002), p.119 (see link).
Sorry, your translation doesn't make sense to me. Something like "The cippus which is before you was made for ..." would be understandable (but why not just "This cippus ..."?). Can you wrench the Etruscan word order to get something like this?
ReplyDeleteOr can "hen" have a temporal sense? "The cippus was made for the sacrifice which is forthcoming" makes the most sense to me. I don't know about Etruscan, but my trusty Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar says "A Relative agrees with its Antecedent in Gender and Number, but its case depends on the construction of the clause in which it stands", so why can't "ipa" refer to "tesns"?
In any case, welcome back from Google Inferno! I was worried we'd lost you.
Daniel: "I don't know about Etruscan, but my trusty Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar says [...]"
ReplyDeleteNon sequitur. Since Etruscan is unrelated to Latin, it has no bearing on Etruscan grammar.
"(but why not just "This cippus ..."?)
"This cippus" is translated as ca tezan but this isn't what was written on this artifact obviously.
"Can you wrench the Etruscan word order to get something like this?"
Non sequitur. Etruscan's default word order is SOV and caru tezan [ama] "a cippus [was] created" is the core clause that conforms to this word order.
"so why can't 'ipa' refer to 'tesns'?"
Appeal to ignorance. I already stated above that tesns isn't in the nomino-accusative.
"Or can 'hen' have a temporal sense?"
Not that I know of. I wouldn't assume.
Good job, Glen. The phrase you got is fully meaningful and fitting the context.
ReplyDeleteI would like to ask only one thing, about the 'directive' case (-iś): How common is it in Etruscan? Did it have regular use, or was just an interesting rarity? Unfortunately, my knowledge of these "rarer" or less obvious cases is skimpy... I would really like to see all the cases of the Etruscan noun on a single, neat table one day.
Bayndor: "I would like to ask only one thing, about the 'directive' case (-iś): How common is it in Etruscan?"
ReplyDeleteIt comes up enough to be an important case, however most Etruscanists seem to fancy calling it an ablative case (denoting "from").
Yet since the type-I genitive case (prototypically -as) is almost identical phonetically to this other case (prototypically -is), I find it odd that they didn't just merge considering that they would then also have almost identical semantics too!
Yet instead there was a definite longlasting difference between the two because the contrast survived all the way into Late Etruscan, as in the Liber Linteus where we find spureś (as in LL 5.iii spureś-treś-c) while its genitive is spural with type-II ending -al, as in TLE 675.
I reason that they are QUITE different semantically and the meaning I'm reading from the so-called "ablative" is in fact in the opposite direction: "to", "towards", "facing". So I call it a directive case and I identify tra not as an "ablative postposition" as some claim but as a directive postposition borrowed from an Italic language (cf. Latin trans 'across, over').
Sorry, but if you want to translate "ipa" as a relative pronoun it must logically belong to the subordinate clause and as such take the case required by it's role in this sentence, independently of the case of the referred noun in the main clause. That's not just Latin grammar, but pretty universal for inflecting languages, as far as I know. Even in English you can't say: "Tell the person, whom is..."
ReplyDeleteUnless of course "ipa" acts in this case more like an uninflected relative particle, in which case however it could still refer to any noun (or multiple) in the preceding sentence. I don't know what rules Etruscan could use to establish which antecedent a relative refers to, it might as well be "tezan", "fusleri tešns teis rasnes" only elaborating on "tezan", but I am not all that sure and don't think the case of "ipa" adds anything to the issue.
As to the word-order of Etruscan, Old Etruscan seems indeed to have been SOV, but later texts also show signs of shift to VO order. Especially in the placement of attributive adjectives and genetives, which often come after their noun in later texts, more typical of VO languages. This seems apparent in this text also, we have "naper XII" and "naper ci", also "hut naper" but this is followed by the probable genetive "penezs". Of course this by itself doesn't make Etruscan a VO language, but should be kept in mind since it means other VO features are likely to crop up in later texts.
The problem I have with the "directive case" is the following: Can't the "Genetive" in Etruscan already be used for direction? In conjunction with the verb "tur" surely the Genetive marks the recipient; "tur- + Gen." ~ "give to". Further, the use of this case with human beings to mark the "agentive" or "by" seems more in line with an ablative function. Of course "agentive/instrumental" function is also often claimed for the Locative and Dative by different "specialists" so who knows if that is even real.
Moritz: "Sorry, but if you want to translate 'ipa' as a relative pronoun [...]"
ReplyDeleteIt's the translation provided by many specialists. Read for example Bonfante, Reading The Past: Etruscan (1990), p.60.
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That's not just Latin grammar, but pretty universal [...] Even in English you can't say: 'Tell the person, whom is...'"
Appeal to lie. This is not universal and your perception of English is just wrong. See this google search result for 'Tell this person whom'. Then look at an old Bible.
The case of the relative pronoun is determined by its relationship within its larger clause. Why do you try so hard to overcomplicate this, I wonder?
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"This seems apparent in this text also, we have 'naper XII' and 'naper ci', also 'hut naper' but this is followed by the probable genetive 'penezs'."
Appeal to irrelevancy. There is no instance of a non-quantifying adjective preposed to the noun in Etruscan, whereas quantifying adjectives like numerals may prepose the noun as demonstratives do. This strict word order is necessary because Etruscan adjectives are undeclined and often indistinguishable from nomino-accusative nouns, very UNLIKE Latin.
This says nothing about the sentence we're discussing though, and we both already agree that Etruscan is an SOV language. ??
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"Of course this by itself doesn't make Etruscan a VO language, but should be kept in mind since it means other VO features are likely to crop up in later texts."
Appeal to irrelevancy. While possible, since Etruscan's word order remained SOV by default, you prove nothing. Worse, you attempt to introduce doubt where there is none. Why?
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"The problem I have with the 'directive case' is the following: Can't the 'Genetive' in Etruscan already be used for direction?"
Not unless you mean "direction away from" (ie. ablative). The genitive is strictly used to refer to origin, possession or motion away from a source. The genitive is NOT used as an agentive, despite unfortunately being claimed by many without clear proof.
When using the verb tur, the genitive is used to identify the new possessor of a gift, so there is no conflict with the general usage of this case as I've just defined it.
When one says Mi fler-cn turce Unial "I have given the gift to Uni", Unial is *certainly* not an agent. I suspect that if one wanted to say "A gift was given by Aranth to Uni," it would simply be translated as Fler turce Arnθ Unial where the "agentive" function is taken up by a combination of the nomino-accusative case and marked word order.
I see that Moritz is not given a fair case (!) here. He merely pointed out the fact that in all the languages he knows, the relative pronoun takes the case corresponding to its syntactic role in the subordinate clause which it starts.
ReplyDeleteContrary to this, you suggest that the relative pronoun takes the case corresponding to its syntactic role in the superordinate clause.
Of course, I am in no position to resolve the dispute, but I think you pointed out yourself, by putting an asterix on *ipés, that the inflection of ipa is unknown, and thus, any theory about the case adherence of ipa must remain a theory until further evidence is at hand. Maybe it doesn't take case at all?
For the record: I don't doubt that "ipa" is a relative pronoun. I am just saying if you too think so you have to follow the rules that govern relative pronouns.
ReplyDelete"Appeal to lie. This is not universal and your perception of English is just wrong. See this google search result for 'Tell this person whom'. Then look at an old Bible."
I believe I am quite correct.
(tell the person) whom he is arresting
(tell the person) whom they got it from
(tell the person) whom they followed
"whom" is always the object of the second clause, the first is irrelevant, they arrested him, got from him, followed him
What I meant to show by my example is that you can't use "whom" when the relative clause demands it as a subject. Let me state it more clearly: "Tell the person, whom is guilty of theft". Can't do that, you need the nominative "who". Even though "the person" is in the (unmarked) objective case. "Tell him, who is guilty ..." - him[obj], who[nom]. Of course by that I have only shown that (older) English still follows the general Indo-European pattern and you are right to say that one can't expect Etruscan to follow it exactly. I still don't understand how it can logically work otherwise but maybe that's my Indo-European constrained thinking. By the way immediately accusing somebody in a debate of lying is not very constructive.
As for the word order, I am sowing doubt, yes. I just think it's not right to say anything too definitive about a language as poorly attested as Etruscan, which will also have varied over time and with location and register of speech. But that's just my personality, I guess, never commit!
Still, while there are no examples of preposed adjectives that I am aware of, there are such Genetives. Of course with those there is no ambiguity in Etruscan, so the direct comparison with adjectives is not valid. So, I concede you are probably right and my doubts are not reasonably justified.
And again I was not clear on the "directive" case. I meant that the "ablative/directive" (whatever you call it, endings -is/-als) can function to signify the agent in passive constructions, not the Genetive. The only example I can think of quickly is with "farθnaχe" plus the names of the parents. If "farθan" really means "to give birth/bring forth" or the like, strange thing to write on a gravestone, now that I think about it. Were they trying to be poetic by not just using "clan" like everyone else?
Gråhatt: "Maybe it doesn't take case at all?"
ReplyDeleteNo, ipei "at which" (TLE 878) proves the pronoun is declined.
Moritz Macke,
ReplyDeleteBefore we continue with this interesting yet suspiciously pedantic discussion that strays wildly from the meaning of the artifact in question, could you please explain why your name pops up on BotScout? The record is only two months old.
There, your email is identified as moritz.macke@gmx.at. Previously, you responded as Moritz Macke but have since concealed your last name.
For those who are sincerely interested in relative pronouns and differences in other languages, try reading about exceptions to Greek relative pronouns, for example, in Croy, A primer of Biblical Greek (1999), p.164. Anyone who thinks all languages must behave like English or Latin are out of touch. There's an entire world of languages and many different grammatical rules available, so everybody chillax. ;o)
ReplyDelete