kaialoiso

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Attestation:	TV·1 (:pazros:pompeteχuaios/kaialoiso) (1)
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	prob. patronymic
Grammatical Categories:	gen. sg. masc.
Stem Class:	o
Morphemic Analysis:	kai̯-al-oi̯so or kai̯-al-oi̯so
Phonemic Analysis:	/kai̯aloi̯so/
Meaning:	'(son) of Kaialos' (?)

Commentary

Personal name in the genitive -oi̯so; the structure of the base is debatable. The suffix -al- forms patronyms in Lepontic, but an onomastic suffix of the same form is attested in Northern Italy, particularly in the area of Brescia as well as in Raetic and Venetic (see -al- 2). For the present form, the choice between the two suffixes depends of the morphosyntactic analysis of the inscription. Eska & Wallace 1999: 131 f. interpret kaialoiso as a genitival patronym '(son) of Kaialos', with -al- as an onomastic formant; if -oi̯so is interpreted as having a syntactic function ('of Kaialos'), -al- could be the Lepontic patronymic suffix ('of the son of Kai°').

The base kai- cannot be ascribed to any particular language; see the morpheme page – a Celtic etymology is possible, but not the only option (though Lat. caius can be excluded, as /g/ would be spelled with chi as in pompeteχuaios). Eska & Wallace 1999: 131–133 consider kaialos* a Venetic name.

The possibility that the form is not a genitive, but a Latinised nominative on-stem kaialoisō was considered by Prosdocimi 1984c: 430; Morandi 2004: 695 suggests an alternative analysis as a nominative kaialoisos with loss of final /s/.

The Raetic inscription PA-1 from Padova contains an opaque word kaial, which does not feature any inflectional endings to identify it as a personal name.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Eska & Wallace 1999	Joseph Francis Eska, Rex E. Wallace, "The linguistic milieu of *Oderzo 7", Historische Sprachforschung 112 (1999), 122-136.