)iponia

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Attestation:	VS·1 (ritiliọ[/]iponiạ) (1)
Status:	uncertain
Language:	perhaps Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	personal name
Grammatical Categories:	nom. sg.
Stem Class:	i̯ā
Morphemic Analysis:	]ip-on-(i)i̯-ā
Phonemic Analysis:	/??on(i)i̯ā/
Meaning:	']iponia'

Commentary

See the inscription page on the difficult reading.

If correct, the form can be interpreted as a (i)i̯ā-stem personal name derived from an on-stem short name (cf. Stüber 2005: 72 f.). The base, possibly incomplete, is unidentifiable; the only comparandum in Delamarre 2007 is nibonia (p. 141), which is epigraphically impossible. If /i/ is assumed to be raised /e/ (for which there is no regular phonetic context, but cf. ritilio(), the base might be epo- 'horse', cf. eppo, epponus (Delamarre 2007: 97). Possibly connected with PIE *i̯e/ok^u̯-r/n- 'liver, roe' (NIL: 392–395) → *ik^u̯on- (colour-word? cf. NIL: 394, n. 13).

David Stifter, Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.