Etymological Notes on Lat. ōtium and autumnus

Authors

• Adolfo Zavaroni https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0542-6134

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71390/arctos.157085

Keywords:

Lat. otium, Lat. autumnus, Lat. aut, Old Ligurian auto, Old Ligurian otu, Old Ligurian autit, Old Ligurian otit, Gr. αὐτóς, Umbrian ote, Umbrian ute, Oscan auti, Oscan aut

Abstract

This paper aims to bring new material to the old but disputed hypothesis that Lat. ōtium is the development of *autiom ‘annihilation, passing, disappearance, inactivity’ (*au- < *h₂eu- ‘away, off’) and a cognate of Got. auþja- ‘empty’, Gr. αὔτως ‘just like; in vain’, αὔσιος ‘idle, vain’. Since Old Ligurian nouns (auto, otu, otiu, otiti) and verb forms (autit, otit, oti/e > ot and oturu) derive from a stem *aut- > *ōt- meaning ‘to annihilate, destroy, leave off, leave out’, the A. is inclined to suppose that Lat. aut, Umbr. ute, ote, Oscan auti ‘or’ and aut ‘but’ are relics of a previous pres. imp. 2nd sg. *auti/e ‘to deprive, leave off, leave alone’ perhaps formed to an adjective *auto- < *au+to- ‘deprived, missing, lacking’. The A. attributes the same stem *aut- to Lat. autumnus which would allude to both ‘vegetation and sunlight falling’ and ‘decline, decrease in human activity’. Cf. Gr. φθινόπωρον ‘late autumn’, where *φθιν- denotes ‘to decline, decay, perish’.

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