autesai

edit with form

Attestation:	NO·19 (autesai:kar/nitus:petua[) (1)
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	prob. personal name
Grammatical Categories:	dat. sg. fem.
Stem Class:	ā
Morphemic Analysis:	au̯-teđ-āi̯ (?)
Phonemic Analysis:	/au̯tessai̯/ (?)
Meaning:	'to/for Autesa'

Commentary

ā-stem name in the dative. Gambari 1998d: 232 compares the Senonian toponym autessodurum (Auxerre) and suspects the name on which it is based to be a theonym. While it is notable that autesai is not accompanied by a patronym/appositive (unless it is written in tmesis after the verb, see the inscription page), the typology of the document lets us expect a personal name. A likely attestation of the name which underlies the toponym is noted by Delamarre 2007: 35 (also Delamarre 2004: 263): CIL XII 3462 autestio (gentil.) from Nîmes. Delamarre analyses the latter as *au̯-teđ-(i)i̯o- 'Sans-Châleur', which is eminently plausible (leaving aside the question of the spelling of tau gallicum in Gaulish and Latin inscriptions). The same etymology for autesā is rendered somewhat uncertain by 1. the absence of the stem vowel of teđi/u-, and 2. the fact that the same morpheme is spelled with san for tau gallicum in the roughly contemporary TI·25 anteśilu at Giubiasco, indicating that the sound/cluster had not yet been fully assimilated to /ss/. Neither is necessarily a dealbreaker, though; the only potential alternative is a comparison with names in audas-, which are quite common in central northern Italy (e.g. CIL V 3503 audasius, audasia (Verona), 8879 audasia (Brescia), 5150 audasius (Bergamo), see AcS I: 283 f., Delamarre 2007: 33), but include no variant with /e/.

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 2004	Xavier Delamarre, "—", review of: Graham R. Isaac, The Antonine Itinerary land routes. Place-names of ancient Europe and Asia Minor, Aberystwyth: Dept. of Welsh, University of Wales 2002. (CD-ROM), Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 54/1 (2004), 261–263.
Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.