The Etymology and Semantics of Oscan 'pukam'

In an Oscan fragmentary dedication (ca. 2nd cent. BCE) [...] hanuseís ・ pukam ・ prúffed, found in the area of the domus publica of Pietrabbondante, the hapax pukam is a remarkable addition to the Oscan lexicon. According to La Regina, Osc. pukā- means a kind of visible monument and stems from the Indo-European root *kwVḱ- “to see” but also “to appear”. This new word, which is thoroughly investigated in this paper from an etymological viewpoint, signifi- cantly increases the attested outcomes of a root that until now seemed produc- tive only in Greek (τέκμωρ/τέκμαρ) and Indo-Iranian (Old Ind. cakṣ- “shine; appear; see”, cakṣate “appears”, cakṣas- “eye, gaze”, Old Pers. cašma, Avestan čašman- “eye”, Man. Parth. āgas “visible”, Middle-Pers. ākāh “informed, aware” etc.). On the basis of the productive Proto-Iranian morpheme *-kāśa- (> Old Persian *-kāθa- “be visible”), there is no doubt that Oscan pukam corre- sponds to a /ˈpukam/ with /u/ as an outcome of inherited *-ō-. Besides, the Os- can new entry allows us, albeit indirectly, to reconsider the Latin semantic field of terms such as statua/signum/effigies/simulacrum. Above all, it opens up the possibility of defining an analogous semantic subfield in Oscan, which was shared by both the well-attested segúnúm and the hapax pukā-