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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 22

ix.—Various suffixes

ix.—Various suffixes.

Gadîr Tuder Asty Hispal
Ierusalem Illiturgi Pessinous (-nus) Tunes

—neuter or masculine. (The indeclinable words are neuter.)

In all the cases quoted above we note that the suffix determines the gender of the place-name; the "rule" is not even traceable. There is, e.g., a well-known suffix -onis, and another -inis. The former is masculine, the latter feminine: hence Narbo -onis is masculine (Narbo Martius), and Carthago -inis is feminine (Carthago Nova).

If we follow Latin further afield, the question is further elucidated. In Gaul, the Romans meet with a place-suffix din (enclosure, wick, or burg). To bring this suffix within the scope of their system they add a neuter suffix, um, and the place-names become neuter: hence we have—
Noviodunum Verodunum Camalodunum (Britair)
Lugdunum Eburodunum Sorbiodunum (Britain)
Segodunum Uxellodunum

And even such hybrids as Augustodunum and Cæsarodunun. All these words are neuter.

But the suffix um, or ium, is freely used to reduce to the Latin scheme a very large number of words found amoig subject tribes:—

Londiniumq Corinium Glevum Lindum
Eburacum Maneunium Verulamium Regulbium
(All in Britain)
Turicum Avaricum Aginnum

—besides words like Trajectum, Durotrajectum, and many others, all neuter, as the suffix requires.

page 510

What becomes of the "rule"? As Zumpt seems to have felt, it is so overwhelmed with exceptions that mole ruit earum. Having examined three hundred and fifty place-names, found chiefly in the western section of the Orbis Romanus, I am not able to discern any "rule" applicable to the names of towns. But the influence of the "rule" is very great. Even Lewis and Short, s. v., are misled by it. In order to justify Liv., xxi., 19, cited above, they allege that Liv. used Sazuntus. But Saguntum is in good prose the only form used, cf. Mayor on Juv., xv., 114. Poets and writers like Mela and Florus use Sazuntus. Juv., loc. cit., uses Zazynthus, a thinly-veiled form of Zacynthus.