Talk:cerebellum

The ending

@Urszag: Could also just be cerebrum + -ellum > *cerebrellum > cerebellum (loss of /r/ to avoid close sequence of two rhotics), no? Not that it's terribly important. Nicodene (talk) 17:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it's not too likely that cerebellum was diachronically preceded by and derived from cerebrellum (would there be a reason for why this but not cerebrum would lose the second /r/? And there are other words like labellum that are semantically and formally similar, but have no preceding rhotic to explain /r/ loss before -ell-.) But actually, the hypothetical ancestral form *cereberlum, although consistent with the attested form, might not have ever existed either. I think it's difficult to morphologically analyze diminutive forms ending in -ellus/-ellum/-ella because while we can say in a general sense that the geminate -ll- in this class of words derives originally from vowel syncope after a resonant consonant, there was certainly a lot of analogy (even setting aside cases where -ell- was extended to form diminutives of words that don't have stems ending in a resonant--some but not all of which may be "double diminutives"), so there's no guarantee that any particular diminutive form containing -ll- underwent this process historically, rather than being created after the time of the relevant sound changes by analogy to older pairs of words. The most complete source I've read so far about the formation of -ll- diminutives is "Latin Diminutives in -Ello/A- and -Illo/A-: A Study in Diminutive Formation" by G. K. Strodach (1933) (JSTOR link). Strodach says that "the majority" of diminutives in -ello-/-ellā- from bases in -(e)ro-/-(e)rā are "probably analogical in origin", and says "regular phonetic development can by no means be postulated for all diminutives [of this type]" (§24-§25, page 32). If this description is accurate, the correct categorization of the suffix seems to come down to how this kind of analogical formation should be analyzed synchronically: does it make sense to give an abstract pseudo-historical derivation where the suffix is -lus, or should words like this be treated as ending in -ellus with some more or less arbitrary base alteration that removes the /r/? I did have the thought that it might make sense to list this in both the category "Latin words suffixed with -ellus" and "Latin words suffixed with -lus", since either analysis seems reasonable to me; do you think that would be a good idea? I did something similar with maxilla, another diminutive whose formation is not straightforward to analyze. However, the note at the top of the category page for Category:Latin words suffixed with -lus suggests that in general, cross-categorization should be avoided.--Urszag (talk) 08:22, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Urszag Good points all around. I wish I'd more to add.

If I'm not mistaken, then, cerebellum is one of those cases that follows a regular development (or might as well have, for all we can tell). I don't see any issue with categorizing it as cerebrum + -lus in that case. Or else, to be consistent, we'd have to add disclaimers (to the tune of 'either -lus or -ellus') to many, many other entries as well, such as the labellum that you mentioned.

Incidentally, would it not be more economical to posit /brel/ > /berl/ (metathesis) than loss of /e/ and then insertion of another /e/? Nicodene (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

There are analysts that have given an explanation in terms of metathesis. Strodach argues against this explanation (page 31, footnote 27), saying that the i in pōcillum shows that the diminutive ending *-elos was subject to syncope rather than metathesis: *pōcl-elom > *pōcl̩lom > pōcillum (with l̩ developing to /il/) whereas with metathesis we'd expect *pōcl-elom > *pōcellom > *pōcellum. And a change of /r̩/ to /er/ seem to be necessary to account for second-declension nominative singular endings in -er in words like sacer, ager, etc. (since metathesis would instead result in -or). So *-Crel- > *-Crl- > *-Cerl- falls out automatically from two sound changes that also occurred in other contexts. While a metathesis of *-Crel- to *-Cerl- would involve fewer steps in this particular context, it would constitute a third rule that we’d need to postulate in addition to the rules of syncope and /r̩/-vocalization, so it can be seen as less parsimonious in terms of number of rules (rather than number of steps).

Rather than adding a double categorization to this page, I decided to add a note about this type of diminutive to the top of Category:Latin_words_suffixed_with_-ellus. I think you're right that this kind of disclaimer would apply to many words in this category, not just this one.--Urszag (talk) 04:08, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the remarkably informative answer. Nicodene (talk) 08:33, 29 May 2022 (UTC)