plialeθu

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Attestation:	CO·48 (uvamokozis:plialeθu:uvltiauiopos:ariuonepos:siteś:tetu) (1)
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Grammatical Categories:	nom. sg. animate
Stem Class:	on
Morphemic Analysis:	bli-all-et-ū or pli-al-ed-ū
Phonemic Analysis:	/blialletū/ or /plialedū/
Meaning:	'Plialeθu'

Commentary

Assumed to be an onomastic element, specifically a "second name" of some description (patronym, cognomen, family name), as it stands after the personal name uvamokozis, but the usual suffixes are absent, so formation and function (and segmentation and analysis and everything) unclear.

Theories about a patronymic uel sim. function of the nasal suffix in Cisalpine Celtic: Tibiletti Bruno 1966b: 316 forms cognomina or even patronyms, thus also Lejeune 1971: 53, 59; De Hoz 1990: 320–223 proposes for plialeθu (and other names in -u which appear to be second names but lack a patronymic suffix) that patronyms could be formed with a gen.sg. ending -ū which derives from the ablative ending *-ōd (affirmative Motta 1992: 314, Lejeune 1990: 77, Bader 1991: 95, Motta 2000: 197; critical Eska 1995: 35–37, Eska 1998c: 67 [pro on as a patronymic suffix]). Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 179 possibly a title or designation (also Tibiletti Bruno 1989: 104).

Bit before the ending generally considered to be a dental suffix; -et- much more likely based on orthographic considerations (theta /t/ vs. tau /d/, see the inscription page); pro -ed-, in combination with -ū, as a "cognominalizing suffix -eθu" Markey & Mees 2003: 144, 150.

The base should, from a Celtic perspective, be bli-, which is isolated and unclear (Lejeune 1971: 59 blio- very uncertainly from PIE *bʰlei̯- 'shine'; cf. also Olmstedt after Markey & Mees 2003: 146). Presumably non-Celtic pli- (cf. Markey & Mees 2003: 147) has been connected with pli-names in northern Italy, especially plioiso and CIL V 5001 pliamnus (Trentino) (Tibiletti Bruno 1966b: 317, Gambari & Colonna 1988: 135, Motta 2000: 198, Morandi 2017b: 425), and with the name of the gens Plinia (Pliny hailing from Como; epigraphic attestation: CIL: V 5262, 5361, pars 2 p. 1123) by Tibiletti Bruno 1969: 1011 f. (also Markey & Mees 2003: 141 f., who 146–149 discuss possible etymologies and prefer a loan from Etruscan like Gambari & Colonna 1988: 135, n. 71).

Element -al- could be a suffix, either somehow related to Lepontic patronymic -al- (Markey & Mees 2003: 144–146, 150 + -eθu = "cognominalized patronymic, i.e. a gentilicium"), or in its name-forming function (-al- 2); or the whole thing is a compound with second element allo-, which is attested with suffix -et- (thus Lejeune 1971: 59; CIL XII 3396 alletorigi (Nîmes), RIIG HER-03-01 (RIG G-224) αλλ̣ετε̣ι̣νος (Chapiteau d'Aumes)).

Motta 1983: 65 ethnicon, Villar & Prósper 2005: 344

See also Tibiletti Bruno 1966b: 316–318, Prosdocimi 1967: 217 (verb), Campanile 1968: 210, 212, Tibiletti Bruno 1968: 392 f., Tibiletti Bruno 1969: 1008–1011, Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 142, Prosdocimi 1986: 238 f., Meid 1999: 17, Eska & Mercado 2005: 178, n. 41, Delamarre 2007: 149, Mees 2024: 222.

Bibliography

Bader 1991	Françoise Bader, "Problématique du génitif thématique sigmatique", Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 86/1 (1991), 89–157.
Campanile 1968	Enrico Campanile, "Su due interpretazioni della iscrizione di Prestino", Studi e Saggi Linguistici 8 (1968), 207–213.
CIL	Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. (17 volumes, various supplements)
De Hoz 1990	Javier de Hoz, "El genitivo celtico de los temas en -o-", in: Francisco Villar (ed.), Studia indogermanica et palaeohispanica in honorem Antonio Tovar et Luis Michelena, Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca 1990, 315–329.
Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
Eska & Mercado 2005	Joseph Francis Eska, Angelo O. Mercado, "Observations on verbal art in ancient Vergiate", Historische Sprachforschung 118 (2005), 160-184.
Eska 1995	Joseph F. Eska, "Observations on the thematic genitive singular in Lepontic and Hispano-Celtic", in: Joseph F. Eska, R. Geraint Gruffydd, Nicolas Jacobs (eds), Hispano-Gallo-Brittonica. Essays in honour of Professor D. Ellis Evans on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1995, 33–46.
Eska 1998c	Josef Francis Eska, "PIE *p (doesn't become) Ø in proto Celtic", Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 58 (1998), 63-80.