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Catellus, Caniculus. A Case of Semantic Interchange Author(s): A. H. Schutz Reviewed work(s): Source: Language, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Mar., 1927), pp. 6-8 Published by: Linguistic Society of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409639 . Accessed: 29/12/2011 05:07
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CATELLUS, CANICULUS. A CASE OF SEMANTIC INTERCHANGE

A. H. SCHUTZ
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

Of special interest in the Romance of Gaul and Spain are the descendants of catellus and caniculus. Within each group, as we shall see, there is considerable fluidity of sense, to such a degree that they come to be used interchangeably for 'kitten' and 'puppy.' Of this state of affairs, the grammarians and lexicographers seem to be unaware. At least as early as the third century A.D., catellus1 was a serious rival of catulus, if indeed it did not threaten the existence of the latter. Probus records catulus non catellus, though Baehrens at one point rather curiously puts both in brackets in his edition of the Appendix, p. 6.2 Judging by the subsequent fortunes of both, catellus seems to have won its battle, certainly in the territory we are considering, for the -ulus variant seems to have left no descendants.3 On the other hand, to list all the forms of catellus would require not a little space, as the sources referred to will readily show; a certain number of specimens are here cited: cael, chael, keel, chiau, chaon, chaillon for the Old French 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:
1 The problem of the single or double t in cat(t)us is discussed by Garcia de Diego, Contribuci6n al diccionario hispdnico etimol6gico, ?111. 2 A curious juxtaposition of the two is found in the following account (Osbertus de Miraculis Sancti Dunstani, cit. Du Cange) of an exorcism: 'et quod in modum parvuli Cati discurreret Francigena lingua dicentibus, ille contra, qui linguae ipsius omnimodis inscius erat, subridens, eadem lingua similiter verbo diminutivo consonanter respondebat dicens: Non ut catulus, sed ut catellus'. 3 As to the form in -ellus being the less classical, Baehrens says: "Unberichtigt ist die Zurtickweisungvon catellus" (SprachlicherKomment.z. App. Probi, 121). The Thesaurus Ling. Lat. gives both, with catellus marked 'a catulus deminutive.' have in Varro, LL 9. 74, both forms: 'ut est cista cistula cistella et canis VWe catulus catellus' cit. LANGUAGE 2. 187 (Kent). See below for association of canis and catulus. 4 A1moires de la Soc. de Ling. de Paris 14. 211 (Sain6an). 6

A CASE OF SEMANTIC INTERCHANGE

chadel,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).7 All these are listed under the general sense 'little dog,' but the meaning of catellus and catulus as far back as classical Latin was much wider in 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 the young of the rabbit.8 These numerous interpretations lived on. Godefroy (Dict. Anc. Frgs.) speaks not only of the cayeau du lion and the chael of the fox (see also Renart 896-7, ed. Martin), but refers in this manner to children: Par la bataille ez vos poignant Borrel O lui estoient si XIII chael, Tuit chevalier adoub6 de novel. (Aleschans 6256) as also La Curne de Ste. Palaye: 'De cibis delicatis pascebant catulos suos quos de turpibus concubinis, ipsi turpiores procreabant' (J. de Vitri). Catulaster is defined in the Codex Cassinensis' as 'Iuvenis duodecim annorum'. In Old Provengal,1" cadelet means 'young dog' but also 'young lion cub'. Whether so great a diversity of meanings has been carried forward into modern dialects is difficult to say with our present facilities, but many things lead one to believe that it has indeed been the case. Garcia de Diego (?109) defines Catalan cadell 'flores de algunos Arboles' and Arag. cadillo as 'flor de olivo'; Mistral (Tresor) renders cadelas as 'jeune et gros chien' and 'grand jeune homme qui fait l'enfant' and gives cadeliero as 'vache portiere qui porte chaque annie commeles chiennes.' Canis (aside from numerous metaphoric values" that it may have,
6

Boucoiran,

6 Atlas Linguistique

Dict. des idiomes mWridionaux. 1789.

7 Garcia de Diego, op. cit. ?109: 'significa un animal fantistico que la gente supersticiosa se representa como un enorme perro negro'. Cadejo<*catic(u)-

lu(m), just as caneja<canic(u)la

8 Varro, RR 3.4, speaking of

(Roman. Etym. Wbch. ?1586).

rabbits and their prolific reproduction says: 'etenim cum habent catulos recentes, alios in ventre habere reperiuntur.' 9 Corpus Gloss. Lat., 5.550 (Gatz). 11E.g. Sain6an's list of terms derived from the idea 'dog' and applied to machinery (loc. cit.). In Spanish gato similarly takes on a number of meanings, being applied to 'pocketbook', 'iron hook', 'block and tackle' (Dicc. de la Real
Acad. Espahiola, 1925).
10

Levy, Supplement-Wbrterbuch; see also Roman. Etym. Wbch. 1763.

A.H. SCHUTZ

resembling cattus in this respect) can be applied to other animals. That Phaedrus uses it as 'wolf' is natural, considering the close relation of the species.12 It is more curious to note the Spanish folk use of perra chica and perra gorda for five and ten c6ntimo coppers, referring to the lions that adorn them. As in the case of catellus, there exist a number of derivatives of canis in Romance, e.g. French chenet, OF chenel (Godefroy), chienetel (ibid.), Fr. dialect chienneton, Prov. canilho, chenilho, (Mistral), Sp. canijo.13 A glance at Fr. chenille shows that, like the derivatives of cattus, possibly even to a more diverse extent, the formations 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, the one based on canis and the other on cattus, have, since early times, followed, from the semantic point of view, a similar and at times common road. Already the grammarian Virgilius, in discussing gender, speaks as follows: '. . quidam simpliciter dixerunt quod masculinum hoc esse debuit quod secundum habitudinem corporis ostenderetur et ita femininum ut vir et mulier, taurus et vacca, aries et ouis, c a n i s et c a t a et cetera animalia.'14 Hence an expression like Mistral's La chino dou segnour a cadela 'the seigneur's dog has puppies' need not seem extraordinary. It is, however, more curious to find under the heading Petit Chat, in the Atlas Linguistique, Map 1498, the forms kdnilos (fem.), kidnle (id.), chenil, chnil, all obviously from canis. That such interchange of meanings should have occurred is the almost inevitable consequence of semantic kinship aided by the lack of fixity within each group. One more remark, in this connection, apropos of Mistral's translation of 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-maris given as 'chien de mer' without comment.' In the last instance, the confusion may be of long standing, because caniculus 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. encanijarse, encaniau. 14 Ibid. ?111: 'Ignoro en qu6 se apoyaria el gramAtico Virgilio, Epist., I, 110, para identificar catta con canis feminina.' Is there not more than one child who thinks of cat as the feminine of dog and even cow as the feminine of horse? Incidentally attention is called to the loose manner in which the passage from Virgilius was quoted. 15Corpus Gloss. Lat. 3.318. 17; 437. 13 and, for catulus, 3.431. 10.