Revue celtique

Four new Gauiish inscriptions. \ 19
Alise [etic gobedbi dugiionîiio Ucuetin in Alisiia). Whether thistense is the
preterite, and -bi, our -be, is the Latin -vit, Oscan -ffed, or whether it
is the future and -bi, our -be., is the Latin -bit, must be left, for the
présent, undecided. That the stem of iorebe, sùopou, ieuru means 'to
make' and not 'to dedicate' is, I think, probable, first, from the occur-
rence of ieuru in the inscription on the menhir of Vieux-Poitiers : Ratin
brivatiom Frontu Tarbeisonios ieuru 'propugnaculum pontilium Fronto
Tarbeisoni filius fecit', and, secondly, because the old-Irish verbal forms
-iurad (gl. factum est) and frith-iuraim 'afficio' are almost certainly
cognate with the Gauiish verb. See Pictet, Nouvel Essai, p. 44.
Remains locitoi which, as I hâve said, M. Mowat regards as a verb and
renders by 'locavit'. It clearly is not cognate with Lat. loco, -ari, a deno-
minative from locus, the old-Latin stlocus, which like NHG. stelle, cornes
from a root stal, Skr. sthal. It may, no doubt, be borrowed from loco;
but then should we not hâve had an â- verb (*loc-a-toi) rather than one
belonging to the /- conjugation Qoc-i-toi) ? Besides this, to equate, as
M. Mowat does, the -oi of locitoi with the -u of karnitu seems to ignore
phonetic chronology, for -u descends from -oi, not -oi from -u, and the
Todi inscription, in which karnitu occurs, is at least two centuries older
than the inscription of Néris-les-Bains. On the whole, if, as I conjecture,
iorebe is a verb, locitoi must be an ad verb, and I would provisionaily
explain it as the petrified locative singular of "lociton, which (if we
remember the regular loss oi p in the Celtic languages) may be équiva-
lent to the Latin placitum and cognate also with t:\x^, NHG. flach etc.
For Gauiish ô corresponding with Latin a, compare mori, mare and
hrogae, margo. For adverbs with the ending of the locative sg. see Bopp,
V. G. §§ 855 (note), 989, where Lat. novê is equated with Skr. navê
'in neuem'. I may add that the termination -o-i of locitoi is to that of the
Greek locative sg. oh.o-'. as the termination of the nom. pi. tanotaliknoi
(i. e. Dannotalicni) in the Novara inscription is to that of the Gr. nom.
pi. iTUTTc-t. Compare also the Old-Irish locative sg. cinn (ex cenn-i,
qnend-ï).
The meaning of the whole inscription would thus be 'Brâtrônos, son
of Nantonios, for Epacatextorîx Leucullôsos made (this) acceptably',
or (if we regard locitoi as équivalent in meaning to the ordinary Latin
libenter) 'willingly'.
II. The Inscription of Bavai.
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