pirauiχeś

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Attestation:	TI·13 (pirạụịχeś) (1)
Status:	probable
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	personal name
Grammatical Categories:	nom. sg. animate
Stem Class:	t
Morphemic Analysis:	bir(r)-a-u̯ik-ent-s or bir(r)-a-u̯ik-et-s
Phonemic Analysis:	/birau̯ikents/ or /birau̯ikets/
Meaning:	'Pirauiχeś'

Commentary

See the inscription page on problems with the reading.

Probably a compound personal name. The ending -eś also occurs in siteś, where it is interpreted as an accusative plural. This is unlikely for the present form, in which we expect a personal name in the nominative, genitive or dative (cf. aśeś). Under this assumption, the form has been analysed as a participle in -ent- by Solinas 1995: 324, no. 10 (see also Motta 2000: 213 f., no. 24; Stifter 2010: 370), in which case the form provides evidence for *-n̥C- > -enC- rather than -anC- in Lepontic (see The Cisalpine Celtic Languages). Also possible is a derivation with the agentive suffix -et-. If the base is u̯ik- despite the spelling with chi, we can analyse the second element of the compound as u̯ik-ent-s 'fighting' or u̯ik-et-s 'fighter' (cf. cinges < *king-et-s 'attacker', Delamarre 2007: 65). With regard to the composition vowel, the first element appears to be bir- as in the birak-names rather than birro- 'short (see bir(r)-).

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.