ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Francesco Perono Cacciafoco
University of Pisa
Pisa, Italy

Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

Water Place Names in the Pre-Latin Ligurian Context. A Study in Prehistoric Toponomastics and Semantics

Voprosy onomastiki (Problems of Onomastics), 2013, Issue 2 (15), pp 91–107 (in English)

Received May 3 2013

Abstract: This paper outlines a new applied epistemological aspect of the so-called Convergence Theory that is aimed to develop a potentially “homogeneous” vision between the different approaches in the field of Indo-European linguistics. This work tries to reconstruct an Italian and European toponymic area characterized by place names linked to the root *alb-, with a delineation of the “semantic steps” produced, over the centuries, by the same root, following a potential all-embracing approach. It seems that paleo-Ligurian place names of the type Alba, Old European river names Albis and the like, as well as their ablauting forms Olb- (> Orb- in Romance Ligurian), do not directly reflect the proto-Indo-European adjective *albho- 'white'; but rather they all seem to continue a pre-proto-Indo-European extended root *Hal-bh- 'water', cognate with the Sumerian Halbia (> Akkadian Halpium 'spring', 'well', 'water mass', 'water hole'). A further analysis of this *Hal-bh-, moreover, leads to a comparison with the proto-Indo-European root *Hal- 'nourish'. The proto-Indo-European suffixed form *HwaH-r- 'water', then, demonstrates a similar diffusion.

Key words: Italian language, Romance Ligurian, substrate toponymy, pre-Latin substrate, Convergence Theory, prehistoric European toponomastics, proto-Indo-European, pre-proto-Indo-European, Ligurians

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