# Descendants reflective of etyma's lemmatic & paradigmatic stems



## Villeggiatura

(I'm not quite sure about the terminology, please correct me if I'm wrong)

The basic formula is this--
the etymon's lemmatic stem is _Aeneis_, and its inflective/paradigmatic stem is _Aeneid-_ (all forms except for nominative singular and vocative singular),
some of its descendants reflecting the former are: Aeneis (Dutch & German)
some of its descendants reflecting the latter are: Aeneid (English)  Eneida (Spanish)

When evolving or importing from the classical languages, some languages tend to reflect the lemmata more often than others, and some tend to reflect the paradigms. English seems to be at one end of the spectrum, Italian and Russian at the other end, and Spanish somewhere in the middle.
(Feel free to talk about other languages and where you place them on the spectrum)

Example 1.Lemma: Venus
Paradigm: Vener-
Descendants reflecting lemma: Venus (English & Spanish)
Descendants reflecting paradigm: Venere (Italian), Венера (Russian)

2.Lemma: Maecenas
Paradigm: Maecenat-
Descendants reflecting lemma: Maecenas (English), Mecenas (Spanish)
Descendants reflecting paradigm: Mecenate (Italian), Меценат (Russian)

3.  Lemma: Eupolis
Paradigm: Eupolid-
Descendants reflecting lemma: Eupolis (English & Spanish), Eupoli (Italian)
Descendants reflecting paradigm: Евполид  (Russian)

4.  Lemma: Pyramis
Paradigm: Pyramid-
Descendants reflecting lemma: none
Descendants reflecting paradigm: Pyramid (English), пирамида (Russian) piramide(Italian) pirámide(Spanish)

5.  Lemma: Sphinx
Paradigm: Sphing-
Descendants reflecting lemma: Sphinx (English), Сфинкс (Russian)
Descendants reflecting paradigm: Sfinge (Italian), Esfinge (Spanish)


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## ahvalj

A couple of comments on the Russian situation:

(1) The pattern you mention is present in the earliest Church Slavonic texts, partly under the influence of the colloquial Greek of that time (cp. _Атлантида_ — https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ατλαντίδα ; _пирамида_ — https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Πυραμίδα_(αρχιτεκτονική) );

(2) As an inflectional language, Russian is
(a) more restrictive to the shape of the Nominative Singular form (which ideally should fit one of the existing declensional types, otherwise it remains indeclinable — either in principle, like _Гюго, Манту, Берлускони, Симоне, _or because the pattern doesn't exist for the necessary gender, like _Эдит, Энн, **Венус, **Церес_) — note the 18th century preference of literal rendering of French surnames ending on a vowel (_Дидерот,_ though totally artificial, is declinable, unlike _Дидро; _cp. also the Petrine _Растрелий _for _Растрелли_),
(b) less dependent on the Nominative form: when dealing with well-known languages, like Latin or Greek, speakers didn't perceive the Nominative as a starting point of the declension — rather, it was just one of several case/number forms.​The lack of -_us_ and -_os_ in the modern Russian rendering of classical names has another explanation: these names were borrowed in large amounts when the language possessed vocalic endings in the _o_-declension (_Иоаннъ, Петръ, Сергии, Авгѹстъ — Христосъ _was a rare exception), and they lost the -_ъ_ and -_ь _together with all other words (_столъ, соловии_). The same occurred also with the Lithuanian names in the 13–14 centuries, already after the fall of the yers (_Vytautas — Витовтъ, Gediminas — Гедиминъ, Vytenis — Витень, Daumantas — Довмонтъ_).


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## Gavril

Villeggiatura said:


> 4.  Lemma: Pyramis
> Paradigm: Pyramid-
> Descendants reflecting lemma: none
> Descendants reflecting paradigm: Pyramid (English), пирамида (Russian) piramide(Italian) pirámide(Spanish)



Middle English had _pyramis_, based on the nom. singular, which was later replaced by _pyramid_.

It's interesting that there seems to be more variability in how the -_tiō_ nouns of Latin (_creātiō_, _petitiō_, etc.) are rendered in the European languages, than there is for the many -_tās_ nouns (_reālitās_, _caritās_, etc.).

For example, Latin _abstractiō_ corresponds to Finnish _abstraktio_, Dutch _abstraktie_, Slovene _abstrakcija_, and German _Abstraktion. _I am not positive whether the Dutch and Slovene forms reflect the nominative -_tiō,_ the accusative -_tionem, _or a modified form of either.

By contrast, Lat. _reālitās_ gives Finnish _realiteetti,_ German _Realität_, Dutch _realiteit_, and so on, all seemingly reflecting the accusative _reālitātem _rather than the nominative. (I haven't found a Slavic example containing the _tās_-suffix yet; it seems common to replace this suffix with an indigenous one, as in Slovene _realnost._)


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## fdb

I do not think that “lemmatic stem” and “paradigmatic stem” are good names for the phenomenon that you are discussing. The former is simply the Latin nominative singular, while the latter is a truncation of some other case form, mostly the accusative singular. As a rule, languages borrow real words, not stems (which are not usually real words but a grammarian’s abstraction). For example, in German Realität (mentioned by Gavril), the Umlaut is a clear indicator that this was borrowed from a suffixed form like the accusative realitatem.


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## francisgranada

In Hungarian your examples are _Vénusz, Mecenás, Eupolisz _(I suppose)_, Piramis, Szfinx. 
_
(_sz _= English _s_, _s _= English _sh_ in pronunciation)

As Hungarian is agglutinative language, there is no need to find an adequate inflection paradigm (pattern), so there is a general tendency to maintain the "non-inflected" (nominative) form of the noun,  whatever be it's nominative ending in the source language. The nominative ending is "spontaneously" perceived as part of the word itself.

Note 1:
Other nouns, e.g. the Latin nouns in _-io, -us, -ns _maintain the nominative form as well, we have e.g. _variáció, augusztus, ágens_ instead of _*variácion, *auguszt, *ágent_.

Note 2:
_Piramis _is from the medieval "Hungarian" Latin. If it were a direct borrowing from the ancient Greek, then the spelling would be probably _püramisz_.




_
_


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## fdb

francisgranada said:


> If it were a direct borrowing from the ancient Greek, then the spelling would be probably _püramisz_.



Greek ypsilon shifted to /i/ long before the Hungarians arrived in Europe.


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> Greek ypsilon shifted to /i/ long before the Hungarians arrived in Europe.


Of course, but there are ancient Greek words (mostly personal names or toponyms) where the _ypsilon _is transcribed with _ü _in Hungarian to render the "adequate" pronunciation. The logic is that the letter _y_ (present in the Latin spelling) is normally not used in Hungarian to represent any sound (except of some historical family names, but this is another story). That's why I wrote "direct borrowing from the ancient Greek". But you are right in the sense that if the word _piramis _were of direct spoken Greek origin (let's say some 1000 ago) then it would be spelled today probably _p*i*ramisz_.


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## Gavril

It seems as though German has (at various times) been open to borrowing the nominative singular form of almost any Latin/Greek noun, except perhaps the productive masculine (-us/-os) and feminine (-_ā_/-_ē_) vocalic stems:


_der Kas*us*_ (< masc. _u_-stem)
_das Thema_ (< neuter consonant stem)
_das Verb*um*_ (< neuter _o_-stem)
_das Präsen*s*_ (neuter noun < _nt_-stem adjective)
_die Proleps*is*_ (< feminine _i_-stem)

But

_die Theori*e*_ (< feminine _ā_-stem)
_der Meteorolog*e*_ (< masc. _o_-stem, based on a type of noun that would have ended in Greek -_lógos_)


There may be other relevant examples that I haven't noticed.


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## Ben Jamin

Villeggiatura said:


> 2.Lemma: Maecenas
> Paradigm: Maecenat-
> Descendants reflecting lemma: Maecenas (English), Mecenas (Spanish)
> Descendants reflecting paradigm: Mecenate (Italian), Меценат (Russian)


Polish has both forms: "Mecenas" is a "generous patron" or a honorific of a barrister, while "Mecenat" is the "care" or "aid" that a "generous patron" exerts  towards his/its clients.


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> Polish has both forms: "Mecenas" is a "generous patron" or a honorific of a barrister, while "Mecenat" is the "care" or "aid" that a "generous patron" exerts  towards his/its clients.


The second word does not come from the oblique stem of _Maecenas_. It has the same suffix as in _ protektorat_, _konsulat_, _episkopat_, _kalifat_, _proletariat_, etc.


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## Panceltic

_


Gavril said:



			(I haven't found a Slavic example containing the tās-suffix yet; it seems common to replace this suffix with an indigenous one, as in Slovene realnost.)
		
Click to expand...

_
universitas - Slovene _univerza_ (but adjective is _univerzitetni_), Czech _univerzita_
facultas - Slovene _fakulteta_, Czech _fakulta_


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## Ben Jamin

CapnPrep said:


> The second word does not come from the oblique stem of _Maecenas_. It has the same suffix as in _ protektorat_, _konsulat_, _episkopat_, _kalifat_, _proletariat_, etc.


What is the source of the -at ending in these words?


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> What is the source of the -at ending in these words?


< Latin _-ātus_. E.g. _senatus_, _triumviratus_.


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## Gavril

Panceltic said:


> universitas - Slovene _univerza_ (but adjective is _univerzitetni_), Czech _univerzita_
> facultas - Slovene _fakulteta_, Czech _fakulta_



Thanks, I wonder if the -_ta _in the Czech words is based on Italian -_tà_ (_facoltà_, etc.) or directly on Latin -_tās_/-_tāt-_.


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## Quiviscumque

In Spanish the "rule" for Latin loans is that we usually take the Acc. (and eventually drop -m or -em.) For instance, _Mars, Martis_ is _Marte_. However, there are many exceptions, particularly for proper nouns. For instance, we say _Venus,_ as cited by the OP and not *_Venere _(notice the patrimonial _viernes_ from the Gen. _Veneris_). There are funny cases: my favorite one is _libido, libidinis_. There exists a (very literary) Spanish _libídine _recorded in the first academic dictionary (1734)... but Freudian translators preferred the German _Libido_. There are similar pairs, for example _teredo/terédine._


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## ahvalj

Curious examples are provided by Lithuanian. The endings in names taken from the classical languages are substituted with Lithuanian ones, e. g.:
_Atrėjas_ (https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrėjas)
_Periklis_ (https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periklis)
_Markas Tulijus Ciceronas_ (https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markas_Tulijus_Ciceronas)
_Gajus Julijus Cezaris Oktavianas Augustas_ (https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustas)
_Jėzus Kristus_ (https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jėzus_Kristus).

But endings in post-classical names are often treated as part of the stem and supplied with Lithuanian case endings:
_Andreasas_ (https://www.google.ru/search?client...GDuAHG472ICg#newwindow=1&q=andreasas+site:.lt)
_Johanesas_ (https://www.google.ru/search?client...GDuAHG472ICg#newwindow=1&q=johanesas+site:.lt)
_Linusas _(https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds).

Google shows occasional entries even for _Antonisas Samarasas _(http://vz.lt/archive/article/2012/7/25/azijos-birzose-bugstaujama-del-europos).


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