Disputatio:Hornanum Caput
promuntorium rectius fuisset. --Alex1011 03:58, 1 Octobris 2006 (UTC)
- My dictionary gives it as promontorium and derives it from pro + mons, montis. What's the alternate etymology? IacobusAmor 18:59, 2 Octobris 2006 (UTC)
- From "prominere". --Alex1011 13:08, 5 Iunii 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I should add that that was White's Dictionary, my old one. Cassell's, usually reliable for Classical forms, agrees that the source is prominere. Watkins's dictionary of Indo-European roots shows that both mons and (pro)minere reflect the PIE root *men-, as do the English words mouth, mental, menace, amenable, promenade, eminent, imminent, promontory, mountain, and amount. ¶ I shouldn't be surprised if the first vowel in question was in Classical times the unstressed, indifferent, "intermediate" vowel, the variability of whose pronunciation may have made possible the spellings prōmintōrium, prōmentōrium, and prōmuntōrium. How we could get from there to the "ū" of prōmuntūrium isn't self-evident. Indeed, the noun-suffixes -ārium and ōrium are quite common (Allen & Greenough #254), but how many words have a suffix -ūrium? ¶ The living reflexes in English & Romance languages could be evidence that prōmontōrium, not prōmuntūrium, was the most widespread Latin form. IacobusAmor 16:50, 5 Iunii 2008 (UTC)
- The suffix (if it is a suffix) is -tŭrium (as evidenced in poetry; e.g. Ovid.Met.15,709). This is an obscure element, very hard to relate to anything, though it may of course be analysed as -tŭr-ium (not necessarily the only possibility). ¶ Epigraphical evidence and best manuscripts of classical authors are in favour of promunturium, which is usually (pace Cassell) considered the normal shape of the word. ¶ Promontorium is probably a vulgar and late Latin variant shaped by a popular etymological association to mons, mont-, perhaps enabled by local experiences of "Vorgebirge" promontories. ¶ The promin(ere) / promun(turium) association satisfies semantically and even (tho less) phonologically, but morphologically it's opaque. So, promunturium is still an etymological crux. --Neander 23:32, 5 Iunii 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I should add that that was White's Dictionary, my old one. Cassell's, usually reliable for Classical forms, agrees that the source is prominere. Watkins's dictionary of Indo-European roots shows that both mons and (pro)minere reflect the PIE root *men-, as do the English words mouth, mental, menace, amenable, promenade, eminent, imminent, promontory, mountain, and amount. ¶ I shouldn't be surprised if the first vowel in question was in Classical times the unstressed, indifferent, "intermediate" vowel, the variability of whose pronunciation may have made possible the spellings prōmintōrium, prōmentōrium, and prōmuntōrium. How we could get from there to the "ū" of prōmuntūrium isn't self-evident. Indeed, the noun-suffixes -ārium and ōrium are quite common (Allen & Greenough #254), but how many words have a suffix -ūrium? ¶ The living reflexes in English & Romance languages could be evidence that prōmontōrium, not prōmuntūrium, was the most widespread Latin form. IacobusAmor 16:50, 5 Iunii 2008 (UTC)
- From "prominere". --Alex1011 13:08, 5 Iunii 2008 (UTC)