Wackernagel

Jacob Wackernagel

Jacob Wackernagel (1853-1938)

Derivation of Latin proper names. Non-repetition in Latin ethnic names

To my knowledge Jacob Wackernagel is the first scholar that gives a very precise description of a non-repetitive situation, in his fundamental "Zu den lateinischen Ethnika", 1906, p. 9. He notes that the Romans used the Latin suffix -ANUS (also) by names of a town that they had known since long time, e.g. SPARTANUS from Sparta, THEBANUS from Thebae. Then he asks: why does another well known city like ATHENAE not have *ATHENANUS,  instead of ATHENIENSIS ? And his answer is that for reasons of euphony, -ANUS,  -INUS could not be used by city names that end in vowel + n(n) + vowel. Wackernagel knows only of one single counterexample, AQUAE SENANAE. If the name of the town ends in consonant + n + vowel there is no problem of having -ANUS/-INUS, e.g. INTERAMNANUS, ANAGNINUS, etc. The avoidance of ATHEN-ANUS and the like is an example of circumvocalic consonantal non-repetition.

Wackernagel's article was published in:  Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik, 14, p. 1-24. Leipzig, 1906.