- Luciano Agostiniani –
is determined:^35 as we see already from the structure of compounds such as Θana-cvil
(proper name of a woman) or tins-cvil (“votive offering,” from a previous value of “gift
of Tins”), in Etruscan the determinant is placed to the left of the determined (unlike,
for example, romance languages like French or Italian). So the direct object precedes
the verb, as in formulae of the type of ci clenar...arce “three children...generated” or cn
ziχ...acasce “this writing...he made,” (respectively in Ta 1.167 and Ta 1.17); the genitive
precedes the name (see the formulas Larθal clan “son of Larth”); morphemes, whether
infl ectional or derivative, are composed exclusively of suffi xes; there are no prepositions,
only postpositions^36 (see expressions such as aritimi-pi and turan-pi, “for Aritimi,” “for
Turan” of Ve 3.34, or the formula clen ceχa “for the benefi t of the son”). On the other hand,
the adjective seems to follow the noun, as in phrases of the type caper zamθic, “vase of
gold” (LL VIII.10), or ziχ neθsrac “writing on/about haruspicy” (AT 1.105). We know,
however, that in many languages the adjective behaves in this matter in unexpected ways.
The second point to note is that Etruscan does not have a grammatical distinction of
gender^37 like Latin, which opposes a masculine mons (“mountain”) to a feminine vallis
(“valley”) and a neuter fl umen (“river”), and that we recognize only from the concordance
of magnus mons, distinguished from magna vallis and magnum fl umen. Concord phenomena
of this kind are entirely absent in Etruscan. Nouns belong to two semantically motivated
classes,^38 animate and inanimate. Only animate nouns show the marking of the plural
when accompanied by a numeral, when there is more than one: so we see clen-ar ci “three
children” (clan “son”), but ci avil “three years” (avil “year”). Furthermore, the marking
of the plural takes place through the use of two different morphemes for animate and
inanimate nouns: ais-er “gods,” clen-ar “sons,” hus-ur “boys” on the one hand, and avil-χva
“years,” cilθ-cva “fortresses,” culs-cva “doors” on the other. The fi rst of the two phenomena
is normal in language typology. The marking of the plural numerals in the presence of
more than one is favored for animate nouns, for example in languages such as Amharic
or Pashto. Much less likely – but examples do exist – is a marking of the plural in both
classes of nouns.
LexiconWe must now address the vocabulary.^39 We have already noted the absence, in the written
documentation of Etruscan, of the most obvious manifestations of writing, from literature
to correspondence. One of the most unfortunate consequences of this situation is that the
few hundred words in our texts, surely only a fraction of the actual vocabulary of a cultured
language such as Etruscan, are only those required by the type of texts that we have found.
The result is that we are quite well informed about certain very specifi c and technical areas
of the Etruscan vocabulary, for example, the names of vases, such as qutum, “pitcher,” aska,
“askos,” leχtum, “lekythos,” culiχna, “cup,” pruχum, “pitcher,” spanti, “plate,” θina, “jar,”
and others. But we miss very broad areas of basic vocabulary. We know that “to be” is
represented by am- (amce “was,” ame “is,” etc.), “gold” by zam(a)θi, that mlaχ is “beautiful,”
cel is “earth,” avil is “year,” tiur is “moon/month,” and, after the recovery of the Tabula
Cortonensis, that mal- means “watch” (or “see”) and “plain” is span; but we are entirely
ignorant of obvious concepts such as “stay,” “go,” “come” and “eyes,” “hand,” “head,”
“change,” “seek,” “open,” “easy,” “full,” “slow,” and so on.
In fact, the areas of the basic Etruscan lexicon that we know best are the kinship
terms, and the names of numbers. For the fi rst, we can list apa “father”; ati “mother”;