riśoi
| Attestation: | BG·21 (riśoị) (1) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Status: | probable | ||
| Language: | prob. Celtic | ||
| Word Type: | proper noun | ||
| Semantic Field: | prob. personal name |
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| Grammatical Categories: | masc. | ||
| Stem Class: | o | ||
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| Morphemic Analysis: | unknown | ||
| Phonemic Analysis: | unknown | ||
| Meaning: | unknown | ||
Commentary
See the inscription page for problems with the reading.
riśoi is one of a number of putative personal names with an ending -oi, cf. rikoi, kasiloi and (unlikely) χoθioi. Neither of the two analysis options – o-stem nominative pl. -oi̯ or o-stem dative sg. -ūi̯ with archaic Lautstand (PC *-ōi̯) – is plausible in the present case. Morandi 2004: 664 (no. 224) reads a dative, suggesting that /ō/ is either archaising or due to influence from Venetic (Morandi 2003: 132, no. 13; Morandi 2007: 299, no. 25). Though this is something of a stretch, a dative makes sense in a funerary context, while a plural form does not.
As concerns the name itself, the analysis is also unclear; see the inscription page for the reading of san. Morandi 2004 (etc. as above) identifies the base as rīg- (rix-), but this is hardly possible, as /s/ is the nominative ending and cannot be present in a derivation (cf. rikoi). Stifter 2010: 371 presumes that Morandi thinks of a suffix (*rīg-so-), but no s-stems of the root or any comparable Gaulish onomastic forms are attested. These issues also pertain to Verger's (2001: 286) rig-s-i̯os. An etymology involving rit- plus a dental suffix would be more plausible orthographically (tau gallicum cluster), but is equally unattested – tau gallicum occurs only in the related base ret- (*-ret-to-, NIL: 576).
