YAv. Spitiiura- and the Compositional Form of PIE *u̯r̥h1-en- ‘Lamb’ in Indo-Iranian

Abstract

This paper argues that the second member of the Avestan compounded personal name Spitiiura- goes back to the Indo-Iranian word for ‘lamb’: Ved. úran-, Mod. Pers. barra. The name ‘having shining white lambs’ can be shown to have mythopoetic parallels in other Indo-European traditions. It is argued that the expected second member *-u̯r̥h1n-ó- formed from simplex *u̯r̥h1en- with a thematic suffix was analogically remodeled as *-u̯r̥h1-ó- in pre-Indo-Iranian times: the model was provided by second members of compounds made from n-stems which lost the nasal due to the so-called “ašnō-rule”, e.g. Ved. víparva- made from *péru̯on- or YAv. ka-mərəda- made from *ml̥h3dhon-. Similar analogical remodeling is found in Ved. aṣṭavr̥ṣá- from vr̥ṣán- and many other cases. The compound further underwent a laryngeal loss by the so-called “νεογνός-rule” (cf. Ved. tuvigrá- ‘swallowing much’ < *-gwr̥h3-ó-) and the resulting sequence *-u̯r̥o- was resyllabified as *-uro-. Therefore, Av. ºura- can represent a “compositional form” of PIE *u̯r̥h1en- ‘lamb’ and Bartholomae’s analysis of Spitiiura- as ‘having shining white lambs’ may still carry the day.