# Tessa (name) and tessa (from tessere)



## tessla

My name is Tessa. I was researching the etymology of the morpheme tess- and came up with a variety of translations/uses in Greek, Latin and Italian. I have since arrived at the verb _tessere_ and its conjugation, _tessa _in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd person subjunctive and 3rd person imperative forms.

I've also found other expansions of the definition of _tessere_, like: fabbricare, fabbricare mediante tessitura, elaborare (t. un discurso), or in sports, organizzare in modo ben congegnato (t. una manovra offensiva)

Can you describe for me, in either English or Italian, some literal and figurative uses of _tessa_ in both the imperative and subjunctive?

Thank you soooo much! I wait with much anticipation.

-Tess-


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## Kevin Beach

I have always understood that Tessa is a diminutive of Theresa.


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## bearded

Hello and welcome to the WR forums!



tessla said:


> some literal and figurative uses of _tessa_ in both the imperative and subjunctive…
> ... in either English or Italian..



_Literal  _
Lei tessa la sua stoffa e smetta di chiacchierare con le sue colleghe! (imprenditore rimprovera un'operaia in uno stabilimento tessile);
Credo che Penelope tessa la tela di giorno ma poi la disfi di notte (con riferimento all'Odissea).

_Figurative_
Tessa pure le lodi di quel politico, ma non esageri! (esortazione ad un oratore ufficiale prima di una cerimonia);
Per evitare che quell'uomo tessa pericolosi inganni, è meglio allontanarlo da noi (consiglio per prevenire guai).

Since you understand Italian, I'm omitting any translation. Should you not fully understand something, pls do not hesitate to ask!
(However, I agree with K.Beach and do not think that your name has any connection with 'tessere')


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## symposium

The name "Tessa" doesn't sound Italian to me, and any correlation to the uncommon verb "tessere" (which is one of those not-so-few verbs that only exist in the infinitive and gerundive tenses, and are basically never conjugated) seems too far stretched to me. I think Kevin's explanation makes a lot more sense.


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## bearded

symposium said:


> verbs that only exist in the infinitive and gerundive tenses, and are basically never conjugated)


Sorry, I do not completely agree.  _Chi tesserà questa tela? / Penelope tesseva solo di giorno… _these expressions sound quite idiomatic to me.


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## symposium

I admit I was a bit too extreme about that, "tessere" is definitely not a "verbo difettivo", it's just that when I read "che lei tessa" I thought "Does it even exist? I've never heard it before". But of course you're right, "tessere" has its all conjugation, it's just that it doesn't often happen one has to use it, but has nothing to do with grammar...


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## Penyafort

I concur with it being a short form for Theresa.


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## tessla

Wow! Such great responses, thank you! From there, I went on a journey. I realized I started with a postulate that tess- is both a morpheme (root) and a proper noun. Maybe it is only considered a proper name and not a morpheme? 

That brought me to a linguistics forum where someone else was asking if a proper name is considered a morpheme. Sheesh, that brought up much debate inside that forum. I asked my question about whether or not tess- can be considered the same morpheme as Tess. I am still waiting on an answer. 

I decided to study the definition of the morpheme. So I found this fun article that discusses the history of the word and how it came to be its own field in linguistics, morphology.  After learning about fissures between whether or not a morpheme should be classified under semantics or phonetics or both, of which none are a blanket term but subject to much debate, I realized "tess-" has both a semantic meaning in Theresa as reaper, but follows a phonetic link with the italian verb. It depends on which assumption you make. On whether or not a proper name is considered a morpheme in the field, I'm left with a question mark, especially when I read this conclusion: 

"Linguists of many persuasions use the word freely, if only as a descriptive convenience, even when their theoretical commitments are not consistent with the idealized picture of word structure inherited from our structuralist forebears... it [the word morpheme] turns out on closer examination to hold the keys to some of the deep questions we can ask about the nature of language. One of these, indeed, is whether or not there is any such thing as a ‘morpheme’"

I giggle at the irony, because according to this article, somehow the science that set out to classify the structure of language has a field that... is unclassified by definition and may not even exist in its entirety. Seems like morphologists have a lot of work to do!  

I learned a lot from this forum, thanks guys!


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## sotos

If you are looking for a sophisticated narrative, you can imagine that is the latinized θήσσα, anti-loan of L. thensa, a kind of ceremonial carriage used to carry the statues of gods to the hippodrome (in Plutarch). Do you have any connections with South Italy?


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## alfaalfa

Ciao,


sotos said:


> Do you have any connections with South Italy?


why do you ask it? I'm curious.


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## sotos

alfaalfa said:


> Ciao,
> 
> why do you ask it? I'm curious.


I thought that the helleno-latin connection (in names) could be more common in the South.


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## tessla

sotos said:


> latinized θήσσα, anti-loan of L. thensa


Wow, wow! Excellent fodder for my thesis. It never would have occurred to me to look up the Greek orthographic spelling. Just to clarify, 1) is "thensa" the derivative of θήσσα, or did θήσσα form out of thensa? 2) What do you mean by "anti-loan"? 

Although I am originally from Rome, New York, US, I don't know of any connection with South Italy. 

Thanks so much! What a fun new track to follow.


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## sotos

tessla said:


> Wow, wow! Excellent fodder for my thesis. It never would have occurred to me to look up the Greek orthographic spelling. Just to clarify, 1) is "thensa" the derivative of θήσσα, or did θήσσα form out of thensa? 2) What do you mean by "anti-loan"?


"Anti-loan" is greeklish. I mean, from Latin passed to Greek, and from Greek back to anglo-latin or something. The dictionary says that θήσσα came from thensa. My first guess was that Tessa was a corrupt tessera (= four), which is compatible with the explanation given by another fella here, about fabrics, fabrication etc. In olden times, fabrics were woven on square looms, and the fabrics are square, too.


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## tessla

sotos said:


> "Anti-loan" is greeklish. I mean, from Latin passed to Greek, and from Greek back to anglo-latin or something. The dictionary says that θήσσα came from thensa. My first guess was that Tessa was a corrupt tessera (= four), which is compatible with the explanation given by another fella here, about fabrics, fabrication etc. In olden times, fabrics were woven on square looms, and the fabrics are square, too.


Understood... now that I'm in Brasil learning Portuguese, I see I'm purchasing tecido in a fabric store, or in English also making a testimony, and that this morpheme has become not only a mosaic square to a contesseration (offering), but also later on to be a corrupt tessera from greeklish... later on my favorite word in the world, a text, or if you will... woven words. Seems as though the etymology of my name (considering Theresa was never an option nor spelling) makes me an open book of sorts  Could it be quintessential? Perhaps, but Quintessence as the fifth element described here, has expanded my brain's universe to a curious place... muita obrigada a toda gente aqui


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## Sobakus

I find sotos' replies here highly unhelpful and counterproductive to everything this forum stands for. The OP was far enough from the light of truth already, and now the matter has been pushed into the realms of phantasmagoria.

The fact is that no name exists that has any connection to either the root of Latin _tex-,_ It. _tess- _"to weave" nor to A.Greek _tettar-/tessar-_ "four", and that non-existent name couldn't have given rise to the exclusively English name Tessa. The latter is quite clearly a common hypocoristic form of Teresa and Esther, as the Wikipedia disambiguation page suggests. More precisely, it's the purely English form Tess extended with the Romance feminising suffix -a (perhaps just backported from Teresa) to make it better conform to Victorian naming tastes.


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## Hulalessar

Proper names are (at least in many languages) free morphemes as, just like any other nouns, they refer to something.

"Tessa" is clearly variation of "Theresa", originally a familiar form, but now considered a name ¡n its own right. If looking for the etymology of "Tessa" you have to ignore its form and go straight to "Theresa".



> I giggle at the irony, because according to this article, somehow the science that set out to classify the structure of language has a field that... is unclassified by definition and may not even exist in its entirety. Seems like morphologists have a lot of work to do!


"Morphology" does not depend on the definition of "morpheme". All utterances are continuous, but made of up ordered segments. Opinions may differ on what amounts to a segment and any definition is probably going to be relative or language specific. Linguists find "morpheme" a more useful word than "word". We may think we have a basic of idea of what a word is, but problems arise if you ask are "fireman" and "don't" one word or two. The concept of a morpheme, even if not rigorously defined, is useful because we can say that both "fireman" and "don't" consist of two morphemes. Another way of putting it is that we can show what is meant by "morpheme" by giving examples. If you want to talk about something you need the words to do it. The precision needed for any definition depends on your level of analysis.


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## sotos

Sobakus said:


> I find sotos' replies here highly unhelpful and counterproductive to everything this forum stands for. The OP was far enough from the light of truth already, and now the matter has been pushed into the realms of phantasmagoria.
> 
> The fact is that no name exists that has any connection to either the root of Latin _tex-,_ It. _tess- _"to weave" nor to A.Greek _tettar-/tessar-_ "four", and that non-existent name couldn't have given rise to the exclusively English name Tessa. The latter is quite clearly a common hypocoristic form of Teresa and Esther, as the Wikipedia disambiguation page suggests. More precisely, it's the purely English form Tess extended with the Romance feminising suffix -a (perhaps just backported from Teresa) to make it better conform to Victorian naming tastes.


You didn't get my post-modern point, and you rushed to conclude that Wikipedia (i.e. other anonymous users) know better. In Greek there are names or surnmaes deriving from numbers 3, 40, 12, 25 and possibly others. There is also the surname "tezaris", but i don't know if it derives from tessera.


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## Sobakus

sotos said:


> You didn't get my post-modern point


Please explain what a post-modern point is in general, what your post-modern point was, and why you think I didn't get it.


sotos said:


> and you rushed to conclude that Wikipedia (i.e. other anonymous users) know better


I absolutely didn't - but you rushed to conclude that I did. I concluded by myself that your explanation was wrong and I made sure to explain why. The correct explanation of the name's origin has nothing to do with Wikipedia or any anonymous users - it simply works, and your explanation doesn't.


sotos said:


> In Greek there are names or surnmaes deriving from numbers 3, 40, 12, 25 and possibly others.


We aren't discussing whether English has names and surenames derived from English numbers. We're discussing whether it has names and surenames derived from _Greek_ numbers. A parallel to that would be Greek having names and surenames derived from German numbers.

The etymology forum is not the right place to play interlanguage word association games, and it's even worse when these games end up confusing and misleading the person who's looking for help from informed users.


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