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Abstract
The Latin suffix ‑tor was purely agentive, while its Romance counterparts, in the standard languages, all also have an instrumental, and some additionally a locative meaning. Traditionally, this state of affairs has been attributed to a meaning extension during the Proto-Romance stage, when instruments are said to have been conceptualized metaphorically as agents. It is the aim of this paper to show that there has never been any such meaning extension. It will be argued that the multifunctionality of Romance ‑tor is due instead to a combination of factors such as sound change, borrowing, ellipsis, and analogy.
Published Online: 2011-03-07
Published in Print: 2011-03
© by Akademie Verlag, Wien, Germany
