mot-

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Type:	lexical
Meaning:	unclear
Language:	Celtic
Phonemic analysis:	/mot/-
Attestation:	muθikuś

Commentary

A u-stem mot(t)u-, possibly also o-stem mot(t)o-, is attested in Gaulish onomastics, see AcS II: 646 f., Delamarre 2007: 227 et passim. Possible OIr. comparanda include moth (m. o-stem) 'amazement, stupor', moth (m.) 'penis, male', and the gloss moth .i. guth 'voice' (KGP: 245 f., 275, GPN: 233), none of them well attested. Recent publications tend to favour the 'penis'-connection (e.g. DLG: 230 f., Meid 2005: 237, Stüber 2005: 78, cf. also RIG L-115 dagomota 'good to fuck' according to Meid 2014: 69), though moth 'penis' is usually reconstructed as PC *muto- rather than equally possible *moto- or *motu- to agree with putative cognates such as Lat. mūtō 'penis' (PIE *m(i̯)uh₁-to- without reflex of the laryngeal in Celtic?) and/or mutilus 'truncated', see IEW: 753, LEIA M-65, M-77, Irslinger 2002: 270, Matasović 2009: 282, Zair 2012: 140. The reconstructed o-stem also does not agree with the prevalence of a u-stem in the Gaulish attestations, where it is visible (e.g. CIL XIII 2269 motuco [Lyon], 3735 motucio [Trèves], 7171 motu[ac]us [Neumagen], RIG M-208 motudiaca [coin legend], M-122 couertomotul[ [coin legend], κασσιμοτουλου [Nîmes, GPN: 63]); this also goes for etymologically unclear moth 'amazement, stupor' (LEIA: M-66, Irslinger 2002: 299), though individual Gaulish attestations such as CIL XIII 3992 mottus, 1069 dumnomotus could in principle belong with these etyma. Delamarre DLG: 230 argues that the variation can be due to the taboo nature of the word (cf. the phonetic uncertainties in another alleged 'penis'-word, buđ-), but from a morphological standpoint the Gaulish element must be considered unclear.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

AcS	Alfred Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, Leipzig: Teubner 1896–1907.
CIL	Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. (17 volumes, various supplements)
Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
DLG	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, 2nd, revised edition, Paris: Errance 2003.