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Albanian natë “night”

Author(s): Eric P. Hamp
Source: Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen
Sprachen, 77. Bd., 3./4. H. (1961), pp. 254-256
Published by: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40848095
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254 EricP. Hamp

addition,the semanticallyunacceptablebase underlyingLat. findo.

Morphologically, nasal-infixes
are well in
represented Albanian.
Semantically,if we mustmake a choiceand in view of the history
of be,besë,*bh(e)idh-seemsthe likelierancestor.

Albaniannate "night"

Von Eric P. Hamp,Universityof Chicago

This wordhas interesting implications forIE. ThoughI do not

at presentsee the total solution,it is worthmakingthe natureof
the problemclear.
ConservativedialectsofAlbanianregularlyshowforthe femi-
ninenoun nate'night'a pluralnet.This form,withits umlautand
zeroending, is anomalousfora feminine, and uniquein thelanguage;
it mustbe old. The onlyway the umlautcan be explainedis by a
lost *i. Thus we have an apparentproto- Albanian¿-stem*natï(s),
no doubtan old accusative*nokwtïns. The singularis as ifa remade
*natã,and is notnecessarily old at all. If thatis indeedso,the¿-stem
character is noteworthy. Ontheotherhand,thoughI haveneverseen
thepossibility discussed,itis conceivablethatanothersolutionliesto
hand. Sincewe do notknowforcertainthetreatment ofold syllabic
-
nasals in finalsyllables indeedthe treatmentin any positionis
still open to question,thoughit seems likelythat we have one
examplein -zet*209 - we mightalso consider*natî(n)s < *nokwt%œ.
On the assumptionthat the Albanianformis an old ¿-stem,
Jokl (LKU 65) has comparedSkt. náktis,Lith. naktis,etc., and
Tagliavini (L'albanese di Dalmazia 202) followshim. A brief
canvass of the literatureshowsthat the problemis not so simple.
The handiestreferences to earlierdiscussionare LEW3 2. 182 (1949),
Feist3369 (1939),Wackernagel-Debrunner 3. 233-4 (1929).
LEW3 (whoseHittiteformnekicsshould,incidentally, be cor-
rectedto nekuz) summarizesthe situationas follows.Only con-
sonant,r-,and w-stemsare attestedwithcertaintyforIE *nokwt-.
The apparentSkt. n-stem(despiteFeist's account) is secondary,
according to Wackernagel-Debrunner. The Latin, Lithuanian,
Slavic, Albanian, and Sanskrit cognates,and OHG nakti-galaare
probablyindividualinnovationsin Wackernagel'sview.
Germanicshows in general only consonantstems and io-
derivativeswhichmay be comparedto Gk. fieoo-vvxnov. Keltic is

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 Albaniannate"night" 255

ambiguousin its slendertrace: We cannottellthe natureofthelost

finalofthepetrified dativein Oír. in-nocht becauseofthe consonant
cluster.ThebestWelshformto workwithis thepetrified phrasepeu-
noeth< *pou(n)noeth< *päp(V)n noktVn.Fromthe vocalismwe
*
maysaythatthefinalsyllabledidnotcontain*ior i ; *noktan, froman
oldconsonant stem, would be acceptable,but it cannotbe guaranteed.
Ernout (Morphologie historique3,1945,93) considersLat. nox
a consonant-stem and the gen.pl. *noctumas ousted by noctium,
yet he points to an ¿-stemin Lithuanian,Slavic, and Sanskrit,
without referring to Wackernagel'sclear pronouncement which
citesOsthofFsdeclarationthat the Sanskritformis an analogyon
rdtrl. Kieckers (II 33) also considersnox a probable consonant
stem. In any event, the consonantand ¿-stemshad become so
inextricably intertwined in Latin that it is virtuallyimpossibleto
assign more than a handful of lexical items with assurance on
internalgrounds.Nevertheless, the archaicadverbialgenitivenox
is fairlyrevealing;it is usuallyreconstructed as *noctesfsyncopated.
It is, however,thinkablethat we have here a zero-gradesuffix,
*nokwt-s, seen in Hitt. nekuz.
AlthoughLithuaniannaktisis predominantly an ¿-stem,the
gen.pl. of the old consonant-stem nakt%is also attested.Further-
more,in the accusativesingularand pluralin Baltic the old con-
sonantand ¿-stemsfellphonologically together;thusthe lone ace.
naktinattestedin Old Prussianis ambiguous.In short,theapparent
¿-stemsof Baltic showlittleof a decisivenature,and, if anything,
Lithuanianpointsto a consonantstem.Slavic *notjbis just as weak
as evidence,and similarremarksapply. On the Baltic, see most
recentlyP. Skardfcius, IF 62. 158-66, 1956.
It is hard to say what lies behind TocharianA n(o)ktim.
TocharianB nekcïye'dosa* appears to be a formationlike the
possessiveadjectivenäkeye,fromnäktergod' It seemsreasonably
likelythatin Tocharianwe have a derivativeformation.
Thus we find removedthe likelihoodof ¿-stemsin Indie,
Balto-Slavic,Italic,and Tocharianin the case of *nokwt-. Thisgives
the finalverdicton the Albanianforman enhancedinterest.There
is one further piece of evidenceon nate that shouldnot be over-
looked.Beside Alb. dite''day*we have sot'today*; the lattermust
representso-t< *só-d(i)t. The zero-ending(perhaps< *tiã-. . .
d(e)iti) is noteworthy. Beside nate we findsonde'tonight'< *s<5-
n(a)te; the formof so- and the suffix-e are quite normalfeminine
„ablative-genitive<c singular.It is hardto knowexactlywhatunder-

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256 Eric P. Hamp

lies these old forms,but it is no doubt a confirmation of the con-

trastiveoriginalstem-class of nate thattheydisagree.
NowinLatin and Balto-Slavicitis easyto explaintheconfusion
and convergence ofconsonantand ¿-stems.But,thoughourevidence
is admittedlyslim,I have difficulty in envisagingsuch a develop-
mentforearlyAlbanian.Therefore, if nate reallywas an ¿-stem,
and not a consonantstem,in earlyAlbanian,it remainsisolated
and seriouslyin need of further study.

Albanianpishk "fish"
Von Eeic P. Hamp,University
ofChicago

The formpeshkis well attestedforthe singular.Wherethisis

not a possible contaminationwithItalian pesce,it seems clearly
to be a back-formation fromthepluralpishqIpiSJcj, as if the latter
involvedumlautas well as consonantchange.Von HarfF(1496- 9)
givespyskeVyssche9; on the basis of the vocalismof his glossand
of his writingswyndt'wind9,wyl'want,will9,we may be surethis
is IpiSk(ë)/or the like,but it is not entirelycertainthathe had not
heardor triedto writea pluralform.Blanchus(1635) gives pesch
¡peSkj.From the conservativeItalo-Albanianand Greek-Albanian
enclaves I have jpíSk/.Meyer (Et. Wb. 329) records peek for
Hydra; I have confirmed thisformthere,and I have also recorded
it in Andros.But fromliterallydozensof villagesin variousparts
ofGreeceI have ¡píSk¡; in Italy I have recorded/jw^/inVaccarizzo
Albanese (Cosenza),Vena (Catanzaro),Piana (Sicily). I therefore
consider¡piSkj,pl. ¡piSUj,def.¡píSUitejoriginal,contraryto Meyer.
South Geg has a levelledpeshk,pl. peshq,but derk'piglet9,pl. dirq;
the North Geg dialect of Dushmani shows completelevellingin
IpeSkl,¡peScj,and ¡derkf, ¡deréf.
Tagliavini(La stratificazione del lessicoalbanese,Padova 1943,
p. 136)remarks : „L'uniconome di pescechesembraessereie. è bitche
designalo storione, cioèunpescede fiume."Ourwordis customarily
regardedas a loan fromLat. piseis. But if that wereso, we should
expectthe regularformto be sg. *¡píale/pishq; cf.'UdU'qelq'glass9
< Lat. calicefm)1).It is of coursepossiblethat a newsingularhas
been formedfromthe pluralon the modelof ¡úlk¡,pl. ¡úllcl'wolf9.
x) We mightalso expectthepluralto be *pishqe;see myarticleGender
Shiftin AlbanianPluralsin RomancePhilology,1958.

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