petu

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Attestation:	MI·1 (petu) (1)
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	personal name
Grammatical Categories:	nom. sg.
Stem Class:	on
Morphemic Analysis:	petū
Phonemic Analysis:	/petū/ or /bettū/ or /bēdū/
Meaning:	'Petu'

Commentary

on-stem personal name in the nominative; probably a hypocoristic formation with or without expressive gemination of the final consonant. Gaulish comparanda are available for both anlaut options, cf. pettu, petto and various other names in pet(t)- (Delamarre 2007: 148 f.), bettonius and names in bet(t)- (ibid.: 40 f.), and bedo etc. (ibid.: 38). (See also Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 148, 1984: 122). The base bed- is the least well attested and of unclear etymology (see DLG: 70, Delamarre 2019: 115 f.). A base bet- is available in Gaul. *betu- 'birch', see DLG: 74, Meid 2005: 222, Delamarre 2019: 123 f., Delamarre 2007: 213. If the anlaut is /p/, the base may be derived from a word from the lexical family of PC *k^u̯etu̯ores '4', e.g. containing the compositional form *k^u̯etru-, or an ordinal formation like *k^u̯etruto- or *k^u̯etu̯orio- (cf. Gaul. paetrute, petuar(ios)) – thus Lochner von Hüttenbach 1989: 121 on pettu in Noricum. Tibiletti Bruno 1984: 122 points out a Latin nomen pettonius at S. Benigno Canavese (CIL V 6901). Cf. petua(.

David Stifter, Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

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.
Delamarre 2019	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire des thèmes nominaux du gaulois. I. Ab- / Iχs(o)-, Paris: Les Cent Chemins 2019.
DLG	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, 2nd, revised edition, Paris: Errance 2003.