schutz - catellus, caniculis. a case of semantic interchange

7/27/2019 Schutz - Catellus, Caniculis. a Case of Semantic Interchange

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CATELLUS,CANICULUS. A CASE OF SEMANTICINTERCHANGEA. H. SCHUTZ

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURIOf special interest in the Romance of Gaul and Spain are the de-

scendants of catellus and caniculus. Within each group, as we shallsee, there is considerable fluidity of sense, to such a degree that theycome to be used interchangeably for 'kitten' and 'puppy.' Of this stateof affairs, the grammarians and lexicographers seem to be unaware.At least as early as the third century A.D., catellus1was a seriousrival of catulus, if indeed it did not threaten the existence of the latter.Probus records catulus non catellus, though Baehrens at one point rathercuriously puts both in brackets in his edition of the Appendix, p. 6.2Judging by the subsequent fortunes of both, catellus seems to have wonits battle, certainly in the territory we are considering, for the -ulusvariant seems to have left no descendants.3 On the other hand, to listall the forms of catellus would require not a little space, as the sourcesreferred to will readily show; a certain number of specimens are herecited: cael, chael, keel, chiau, chaon,chaillon for the OldFrench examples;among the patois of the northern regions, cha6, ch6, chiau, chiaule,quiaule.4 We may add a few forms that occur in the South of France:1The problem of the single or double t in cat(t)us is discussed by Garcia de

Diego, Contribuci6nal diccionario hispdnico etimol6gico, ?111.2 A curious juxtaposition of the two is found in the following account (Os-bertus de Miraculis Sancti Dunstani, cit. Du Cange) of an exorcism: 'et quod inmodum parvuli Cati discurreret Francigena lingua dicentibus, ille contra, quilinguae ipsius omnimodis inscius erat, subridens, eadem lingua similiter verbodiminutivo consonanter respondebat dicens: Non ut catulus, sed ut catellus'.3 As to the formin -ellus being the less classical, Baehrens says: "Unberichtigtist die Zurtickweisungvon catellus" (SprachlicherKomment.z. App. Probi, 121).The ThesaurusLing. Lat. gives both, with catellusmarked 'a catulus deminutive.'

VWe ave in Varro, LL 9. 74, both forms: 'ut est cista cistula cistella et caniscatulus catellus' cit. LANGUAGE. 187 (Kent). See below for association of canisand catulus.4 A1moiresde la Soc. deLing. de Paris 14.211 (Sain6an).

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A CASE OF SEMANTIC INTERCHANGE 7chadel,5kdddl(in Pyr6n. Orient.), kiddu (in Bouches du Rh6ne), tchddel(in Lozbre), kbddl,kadio (Cantal).6 In Spain we find Old Cast. cadiello,Aragonese cadillo, Catalan cadell (and Spanish America has cadejo,related to these forms).7All these are listed under the general sense 'little dog,' but the mean-ing of catellus and catulus as far back as classical Latin was much widerin scope, for it could signify the young of the wolf, lion or similar animal;extension of this idea even permitted application of the term to theyoung of the rabbit.8 These numerous interpretations lived on.Godefroy (Dict. Anc. Frgs.) speaks not only of the cayeau du lion andthe chael of the fox (see also Renart 896-7, ed. Martin), but refers inthis manner to children:

Par la bataille ez vos poignant BorrelO lui estoient si XIII chael,Tuit chevalier adoub6 de novel. (Aleschans 6256)as also La Curne de Ste. Palaye: 'De cibis delicatis pascebant catulossuos quos de turpibus concubinis, ipsi turpiores procreabant' (J. deVitri). Catulaster is defined in the Codex Cassinensis' as 'Iuvenisduodecim annorum'. In Old Provengal,1"cadelet means 'young dog'but also 'young lion cub'. Whether so great a diversity of meaningshas been carried forward into modern dialects is difficult to say withour present facilities, but many things lead one to believe that it hasindeed been the case. Garcia de Diego (?109) defines Catalan cadell'flores de algunos Arboles' and Arag. cadillo as 'flor de olivo'; Mistral(Tresor) renders cadelasas 'jeune et gros chien' and 'grand jeune hommequi fait l'enfant' and gives cadelieroas 'vache portiere qui porte chaqueannie comme es chiennes.'Canis (aside from numerous metaphoric values" that it may have,6 Boucoiran, Dict. des idiomes mWridionaux.

6 Atlas Linguistique 1789.7 Garcia de Diego, op. cit. ?109: 'significa un animal fantistico que la gentesupersticiosa se representa como un enorme perro negro'. Cadejo


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8 A.H. SCHUTZresembling cattus in this respect) can be applied to other animals. ThatPhaedrus uses it as 'wolf' is natural, considering the close relation ofthe species.12 It is more curious to note the Spanish folk use of perrachica and perra gorda for five and ten c6ntimo coppers, referring to thelions that adorn them. As in the case of catellus, there exist a number ofderivatives of canis in Romance, e.g. French chenet, OF chenel (Gode-froy), chienetel (ibid.), Fr. dialect chienneton, Prov. canilho, chenilho,(Mistral), Sp. canijo.13 A glance at Fr. chenille shows that, like thederivatives of cattus, possibly even to a more diverse extent, the forma-tions on canis show a great variety of significance: Roman. Etym.Wbch. mentions kanaya (in Tessin canton, Switzerland), rendered'Kinder' and Tyrolese kanai 'Knabe.' Thus the two major groups, theone based on canis and the other on cattus, have, since early times,followed, from the semantic point of view, a similar and at times commonroad. Already the grammarian Virgilius, in discussing gender, speaksas follows: '. . quidam simpliciter dixerunt quod masculinum hocesse debuit quod secundum habitudinem corporis ostenderetur et itafemininum ut viret mulier, taurus et vacca,aries et ouis, c a n i s et c a t aet cetera animalia.'14 Hence an expression like Mistral's La chino dousegnour a cadela 'the seigneur's dog has puppies' need not seem extra-ordinary. It is, however, more curious to find under the headingPetit Chat, in the Atlas Linguistique, Map 1498, the forms kdnilos(fem.), kidnle (id.), chenil, chnil, all obviously from canis. That suchinterchange of meanings should have occurred is the almost inevitableconsequence of semantic kinship aided by the lack of fixity within eachgroup.One more remark, in this connection, apropos of Mistral's translationof fa de-catetos 'en baissant la tete, en rampant avec un air d'humilit6.'Was he aware that this is more the manner of a dog than of a cat?Certain it is that cat-de-mar s given as 'chien de mer' without comment.'In the last instance, the confusion may be of long standing, becausecaniculus and catulus are both rendered 'piscis' by the Latin glossators.15

12Riddle-Scheller's Lexicon totius Latinitatis.13Garcia de Diego ?96. Many verbs are formed on this substantive, e.g. en-canijarse, encaniau.14Ibid. ?111: 'Ignoro en qu6 se apoyaria el gramAticoVirgilio, Epist., I, 110,para identificar catta con canis feminina.' Is there not more than one child whothinks of cat as the feminine of dog and even cow as the feminine of horse? In-cidentally attention is called to the loose manner in which the passage fromVirgilius was quoted.15CorpusGloss.Lat. 3.318. 17; 437. 13 and, for catulus, 3.431. 10.

schutz - catellus, caniculis. a case of semantic interchange

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