Written by Rhiannon Smith – Recipient of a Philological Society bursary.

This September, I had the opportunity to travel to Munich for the 15^th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin thanks to the generous support of the PhilSoc Travel and Fieldwork Bursary. This conference was my final opportunity to present my research in front of an audience of academics before handing in my PhD. 

My research focuses on the creation and use of Greek-influenced paradigms on Greek and Latin women’s names in Latin inscriptions. I presented a paper entitled ‘How should women’s names decline in Latin inscriptions?’ There are three possible grammatical paradigms which can be used in Latin with Greek female names in ‑e. 

Nominative	-e	-e	-e
Accusative	-en / -em	-enem	-etem
Genitive	-es	-enis	-etis
Dative	-e	-eni	-eti
Ablative	-e	-ene	-ete

The first of these is the transliterated Greek first declension and the second two are created in Rome. Although all these paradigms should only be used with names that have nominatives in ‑e, I have found 278 unique Latin cognomina (which should have nominatives in -a) in these three paradigms. The nine most popular Latin cognomina are Iuliana, Marciana, Aeliana, Rufina, Aproniana, Claudiana, Clementiana, Feliciana and Sabiniana. My data showed that names suffixed in ‑iana were most popular in the paradigms ‑e, ‑enis and ‑e, ‑etis whereas names not suffixed in ‑iana were mostly found in ‑e, ‑es. There is something about Latin cognomina in ‑iana which was specifically drawing them to nominative ‑e, ‑e, ‑enis and ‑e, ‑etis. For example, almost 20% of epigraphic attestations of Marciana are found with a non-standard/Greek-influenced ending (Smith 2024:31-48). However, the same patterns are not visible in the data for genitive ‑es. The most popular names in genitive ‑es match the most popular overall Latin cognomina and it appears that only genitive ‑es has transplanted to Latin cognomina, rather than the full paradigm. I argue that this is almost certainly related to another ending, genitive ‑aes which I analyse in more detail in my thesis.

The second half of my paper focused on Greek female cognomina found in the three paradigms given above. One of the only theories on the alternation between ‑e, ‑enis and ‑e, ‑etis is given by Adams: “when the ending of the nominative is -ne, -eti(s) is preferred, whereas when the nominative has any consonant other than n before the final eta, it is -eniswhich is overwhelmingly in the majority”.  This is a very plausible suggestion; a form with stem-final n would be more awkward to pronounce with ‑e, ‑enis (for example Irenenis, Ireneni).

The table below lists the 10 most popular Greek cognomina in ‑e found in the paradigms ‑e, ‑enis and ‑e, ‑etis

	-e, -enis	-e, -etis
1.	Nice	Cyriace
2.	Tyche	Irene
3.	Agape	Eutychiane
4.	Auge	Hermione
5.	Chreste	Zosime, Philumene
6.	Zosime
7.	Calliste	Eutyche
8.	Philete	Semne
9.	Trophime	Phile
10.	Syntyche	Cale, Euphrosyne, Hedone

The ‑e, ‑etis paradigm does appear to have more cognomina with stem-final n which does appear to support Adams’ theory. However, he fails to take into account the time periods in which ‑e, ‑enis and ‑e, ‑etis were used. In my paper I showed that ‑e, ‑enis was most strongly used from 0-200 CE whereas ‑e, ‑etis was most prominent in 300-400 CE.

Using my data from Greek cognomina in genitive ‑es as a control group, I compared the proportion of different stem-final consonants in each paradigm. I concluded therefore, that in the Christian period where all three paradigms were attested, stem-final consonant does appear to have an effect on paradigm choice, although this appears to be a tendency rather than a rule. Names with stem-final n are very rare in ‑e, ‑enis but equally common in ‑e, ‑etis and genitive ‑es, whereas names with stem-final t are only found in -e, -enis. Stem-final p is also most common in -e, -enis in this time period. There are some Greek cognomina suffixed in ‑iane in the ‑e, ‑etis dataset. Greek names suggested in ‑iane are more likely to decline in -e, -etis than to take any other endings. Other cognomina with stem-final n but not suffixed in ­‑iane can choose fairly freely between genitive ‑es and -e, -etis, although they avoid -e, -enis for phonological reasons. Cognomina with stem-final p and t avoid -e, -etis due to phonological similarities.

In the pre-Christian Imperial period, it is not accurate to describe an alternation of –e, -enis and ‑e, ‑etis, as Adams does. In the -e, -etis dataset, there are only 17 Greek cognomina attested before 300 CE. Therefore, there is simply not enough use of this paradigm to suppose that speakers were actively choosing between -e, -enis and -e, -etis in this time period. We are thus seeing only alternation between -e, -es and -e, -enis. The distributions for ‑e, ‑es and ‑e, ‑enis are mostly similar; the main difference is that names with stem-final n rarely use ‑e, ‑enis.

It was incredibly fulfilling to me to be able to present the culmination of my research to eminent academics and to share my findings with the wider research community. I had a lovely week exploring Munich, swimming in the river and walking the city, especially enjoying the last of the summer sun before returning to England. Conferences have always been an important way to develop my own research and learn about interesting projects in other areas that I might not have been otherwise aware of, and again, I am grateful to the Philological Society for providing the funding to allow me to take part in LVLT 2024.

Bibliography

Adams, J. N. (2003). Bilingualism and the Latin Language. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.

Nuorluoto, T. (2023). Latin Female Cognomina. A Study on the Personal Names of Roman Women. Helsinki; Societas Scientiarum Fennica.

Smith, R. K. (2024). Marciana: A Case Study in Greek-Influenced Endings. In Exploring Latin: Structures, Functions, Meaning. De Gruyter.

Solin, H. (1982) Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom: ein Namenbuch. Berlin; De Gruyter.