fritillus frivolus


Latin <fritillus> 'dice-box' is of obscure origin. The first vowel is
known to be short by scansion. With a question mark, Walde suggests a
possible connection with <fritinni:re> 'to chirp, twitter' as
suggesting the sound of rattling dice. This verb is used for the
sound of small birds and cicadas, and its Italian reflex <frinire> is
primarily used for cicadas. A simple verb *frita:re is suggested by
the gloss <fritamentum> 'vox merulae' i.e. 'blackbird's cry'.
However, the notion that the rattling of dice would be likened to the
sound of blackbirds or cicadas is rather implausible. Latin was not
impoverished in verbs denoting specific sounds, and had several for
particular bird-cries: in Polemius Silvius "corvus crocit, merulus
frendit, turtur gemit, turdus trucilat, anser glingit, grus gruvit,
milvus linguit, hirundo minurrit".

More likely in my view is that the action of the dice-box was likened
to that of a ball-mill, and that <fritillus> means literally 'little
ball-mill'. Ball-mills, essentially drums containing loose metal
balls for grinding aggregate down to powder, would have served the
Romans either in making cement for construction, or in reducing old
pottery to clay-dust for mixing with virgin clay in order to make it
go further. This would relate <fritillus> to <fria:re> 'to break or
crumble into small pieces' and <frica:re> 'to wear down, rub down,
rub', from a root *bhrei-. The postulated word for 'ball-mill' would
involve the implemental suffix *-tlo- appended to the reduced grade of
this root, yielding *bhri-tlo- which would have given *friculum in
Latin. To my knowledge no such word is attested. The detailed
derivation involves two other difficulties as well.

First, we note the presence in Latin of diminutives in -Cillo- from
nouns and adjectives in -C(u)lo- (C = consonant), such as <vexillum>
'flag, banner, standard' from <ve:lum> (earlier *vexlom < *weg-slom,
from *weg- 'to weave', cf. Mid. Ir. <figim> 'I weave', etc.) 'sail,
curtain, awning', <tantillus> 'so very little' from <tantulus> (by
anaptyxis from *tantlos) 'so little'. This is explained as a
diminutive formation with nasal infix, viz. *-Clo- > dim. *-Cl.no- > *-
Celno- > -Cillo- by regular processes in Latin. The diminutive does
not always have the same gender as its primary, e.g. <pa:billus>
'small wheelbarrow' from <pa:bulum> originally 'feeding trough' then
'animal-feed' (for the transition cf. Cato's "bubus pabulum parare";
preparing the trough is preparing the feed; this is an implement in *-
dhlo-, *peH2-dhlo-). Now, one problem is that <po:c(u)lum> 'drinking
cup' has dim. <po:cillum>, and this represents earlier *po:tlom as
shown by the Etruscan borrowing <putlum(uza)> (probably from
Faliscan). However, <fritillus> not *fricillus can still be justified
if *fric(u)lum was out of use. We do have <fitilla> 'sacrificial
gruel', a diminutive with no primary in use (but cf. Umbrian <ficla>
'sacrificial cake'). Thus it is likely that *po:tillum, which could
not undergo -tl- > -cl-, was replaced by <po:cillum> under the
influence of <po:c(u)lum>, which did undergo this regular shift (on
the evidence of the Etr. borrowing, -tl- > -cl- occurred independently
in P-Italic and Q-Italic).

Second, <po:c(u)lum> itself is formed from the normal grade of the
root, *po:- from earlier *peH3-; the reduced grade occurs in the
reduplicated stem *pi-pH3- > *pib- (thus in Indic; in Celtic *ib-, in
Italic *bib- by analogy with other reduplicated stems). Most other
Latin implements with this suffix, such as <guberna:c(u)lum>, are not
demonstrably ancient and say nothing about the appendage of *-tlo-
directly to roots. We might thus be led to expect *fri:tillus from
*bhrei-tlo-. However, in Greek we find at least two examples of
implements in -tlo formed from reduced grade: <ántlos> 'bailing
bucket; bilgewater; hold' (with Ionic psilosis from *hántlos < *sm-
tlo-; the normal grade *sem- appears in Lat. <senti:na> 'bilgewater',
Lith. <semiù> 'I bail') and <khútlon> 'liquid; wash-water; mixture of
water and oil' (normal grade in <khéo:>, Epic <kheúo:> 'I pour'). The
semantic drift away from implements is not surprising, since -tlo- was
not productive in classical Greek (and not mentioned by Chantraine,
who places these words under -thlo- from *-dhlo- and invokes
dissimilation of aspiration, but in the wrong direction).

Thus there is no fatal morphological objection to my etymology of
<fritillus>. Another word which can be explained from the same root
is <fri:volus> 'silly, trifling, worthless'. The neuter plural occurs
in the sense 'wretched furniture'. However, Paulus ex Festo says
"frivola sunt proprie vasa fictilia quassa": 'frivola are, strictly
speaking, shattered ceramic vessels'. Such broken remains had no use
but to be recycled into clay-dust in a ball-mill. Latin has a few
deverbative adjectives in *-wo-. One which best illustrates the
original sense is <caeduus> 'fit to be cut' (of trees, etc.). These
adjectives tend to lose their specialty of fitness and shift toward a
mere passive sense, as <irriguus> 'fit to be irrigated' > 'irrigated'
'well-watered', <arvus> 'fit to be ploughed, arable' (Naevius,
Pacuvius) > 'ploughed, but not yet seeded' (Varro). I hypothesize an
adjective *bhrei-wo- 'fit to be broken or crumbled into small pieces',
whence Old Latin *freivos 'suitable for pulverization in a ball-
mill' (i.e. in a *fritlom), appropriate for cracked, chipped, or
otherwise damaged pottery. Pots awaiting recycling would have been
called *freiva; after the first step of shattering them, the fragments
would be *freivola, small pieces destined for the ball-mill. And this
survives as the original sense of <fri:vola> preserved by Festus. In
the wider world outside the potter's shop, it is not surprising that
<fri:vola> would take on the sense of 'objects having minimal value,
worn-out furniture, old trumpery, junk' and that the adjective
<fri:volus> would acquire its generally attested sense. With *fri:vus
out of use (other than its possible survival as potter's jargon),
grammarians would not recognize <fri:volus> as a diminutive, and its
Imperial spelling would not be changed to conform to <servulus>,
<parvulus>, etc. Indeed, with no obvious relatives, <fri:volus> might
well have been construed as a compound adjective meaning 'willing
silliness' or the like, parallel to <benevolus> 'willing wellness,
kind, obliging', but with an obscure first element.

.

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