Linguistic Society of America

THE INSCRIPTION OF DVENOS
only for the intentionally enigmatical character of the text which is
thereby produced. Thus an archaic form might be used with the in-
tervocalic S, even though rhotacism had normally entered into such
groups of sounds. TOITESIAI is a personal name or its virtual equiva-
lent and might well resist rhotacism for some time longer than an ordi-
nary word; or it might be a country form, cf. such doublets as Valerius
and Valesius among proper names of later times. As for the passive
infinitive in -i, there is no evidence that it goes back to an earlier -ei
from a primitive -ai, for the first inscriptional examples showing El
are of the year 117 B.C., when I and ei had long been confused; and
there is nothing which if added to a final -ei would produce the -ier of
the alternative form of the infinitive, common in the works of Plautus,
whose date makes it impossible to take it as an extension of a form in
which the final diphthong had already become a monophthong.6'
Thus the objections to PAKARI as an infinitive are eliminated; but
there are also positive objections to PAKARI as an adjective. If it be
taken as for *pacrim, there is an anaptyctic vowel; but the anaptyctic
vowel of Latin was not a, but e, and if we take recourse to the dialects,
that of Oscan had the same quality as the vowel which adjoined the
liquid or other sound mainly responsible for the phenomenon. Thus an e
or an i might develop in *pacrim, but not an a. Lindsay's alternative
suggestion66 that PAKARI is from a stem *pacdri-, falls because the
suffix -ari- is merely a dissimilated form of the suffix -dli- which devel-
ops after another 1 in the stem. A *pacdriom with syncope is equally out
of the question, since the r is here the product of rhotacism. Nothing is
gained by regarding PAKARI as other than a passive infinitive.
To return to ASTED, the interpretation adstet, with a carrying over of
the negative of the first line, is rather forcing the matter. The three
lines are separated by such gaps that the separation cannot be unin-
tentional; and as I have said, we may expect the lines to be reasonably
independent in syntax and in meaning. After the 'may the Maid not be
kind to thee' of the first line, and before the 'unless thou wilt ...'. of
the second line, we should look for something like 'but may she torture
thee'. Three interpretations fit this view: ASt TED with an implied
torqueat or the like would mean 'but (may she torture) thee'; AbS TED
with an implied verb of aloofness would mean 'from thee (may she
stand aloof)'; AbSTED would mean 'may she stand away (from thee)'.
I am not particularly concerned which of these three views is to be
tt Cf. F. Sommer, Handb. d. lat. Laut- u. Formen1.>3 593-4.
u Handbook of Latin Insc. 20.
219