![]() In the same way as we work back from edūlium ‘a tasty dish’ to edūlis ‘edible’ and thence to * edu, roughly “edibles,” so from pecūlium ‘personal movable possessions’ we work back to * pecūlis *‘what may be possessed’ and from * pecūlis to pecū, which we must now define as “(movable) property.” Whatever route we choose, we always arrive at the same conclusion: pecū signifies “movable property” (personal chattels). Between this legal term and the basic term pecū a functional continuity can be re-established, pari passu with the link of morphological derivation. These two notions, personal possession and movable possessions, also apply to the derived verb peculo( r), which yielded pecūlātus ‘(fraudulent) appropriation of public money’. But the possessions concerned are invariably movable ones, whether pecūlium is taken in the strict sense or in the figurative sense. In pecūlium, even more than in pecūnia, the connection with personal property is underlined, even if it was restricted to a certain social class. We thus find in pecūlium a second proof that the basic notion, that of pecū, did not refer specifically to live-stock. ![]() But this limitation did not imply that pecūlium designated an item of live-stock or a coin. In ordinary conditions of life the slave could hardly amass a pecūlium except with what was within his reach: a little money and a few sheep. This is one of the elements in the comedy of the Captivi (v. This is seen as early as Plautus: a young boy can be given as pecūlium to the son of the master and will be called his pecūliāris puer. In fact, pecūliāris is only an adjective of pecūlium, and any movable possession can become pecūlium. The distribution stated, we shall recognize the meaning of pecūlium in the derivative pecūliāris ‘pertaining to pecūlium’ or ‘given as pecūlium’. It is no task of ours to enquire why pecūlium refers to the savings of the slave and pecūnia to the fortune of the master this is a problem which concerns the history of institutions and not the linguistic form. The notion of “personal possessions” is the key notion, and they always consisted of movable goods: money or sheep. It is known that pecūlium denotes possessions granted to those who had no legal right to possessions as such: personal savings granted by the master to his slave and by the father to his son. We have here a term which, we may say straight away, is still further removed from pecū than pecūnia was. What has been said of pecūnia is to a large extent also true of pecūlium. Émile Benveniste, Indo-European Language and SocietyĢ: A Lexical Opposition in Need of Revision: sus and porcusġ1: An Occupation without a Name - Commerceġ: The Importance of the Concept of PaternityĢ: Status of the Mother and Matrilineal Descentģ: The Principle of Exogamy and its ApplicationsĤ: The Indo-European Expression for "Marriage"Ħ: Formation and Suffixation of the Terms for Kinshipħ: Words Derived from the Terms for KinshipĦ: The Latin Vocabulary of Signs and Omens
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