/hantawatta-(ti)/, REX-ta-
‘to become king’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- verb
- ID
- 1085
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/hantawatta-(ti)/, REX-ta-
‘to become king’1.1.1Transmission
This lexeme is attested three times in inscriptions from Tabal and Cilicia. All of which date to the 8th or early 7th century BCE.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
| 3sg. pres. ind. act. | /hantawattatti/ | REX-ta-ti-i | KARATEPE 1 Hu., §59 (Cilicia) |
| 1sg. pret. ind. act. | /hantawattahha/ | REX-wa/i-ta-ha | BOR, §8 (Tabal) |
| 3sg. pret. ind. act. | /hantawattatta/ | REX-ta | KARABURUN, §2 (Tabal) |
The attestation in KARATEPE 1 Hu., §59 features the signs arranged in a slightly different order, viz. 〈REX-ta-i-ti〉, but Hawkins & Morpurgo Davies 1975a:126 suggest reading it as recorded in the table above, because they view it as an abl./instr. in /-adi/. While their grammatical interpretation is not followed here, the order of reading they suggest still appears the most likely solution even with the form now being analysed as a verb following Sasseville 2021a:38f.
[AH.B.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
The phonological interpretation of this lexeme depends wholly on the interpretation for the noun /hantawatt(i)-/ ‘king’, which itself can be regarded as secure because of supporting evidence form CLuw., see under lemma. The verb /hantawatta-/ itself is only attested in HLuw. and has no full cognate in CLuw.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
Despite being a regular denominal factitive intransitive verb, /hantawatta-/ still took a long time to be identified due to its contexts of attestation. The only context clear from the start was elucidated by Bossert 1957b:163, who suggested ‘König werden’ or ‘König sein’ for it. BOR, §8, on the other hand, was less clear with the verb taking first position in the clause and being followed by clitics, which obfuscate the word boundaries, cf. the discussion in Hawkins 2000a:521. Similarly challenging was the fact that, in Karatepe, the HLuw.-Phoenician bilingual inscription provided little help in either identification or interpretation of the verb, because the Phoenician version of the same clause is constructed differently: w-ʾm mlk b-mlkm ‘if (there is) a king among kings’.Hence Hawkins & Morpurgo Davies 1975a:126 and still Hawkins 2000a:56 take the form 〈REX-ta-ti-i〉 to be /hantawattadi/, a noun in the abl./instr., and translate it as ‘If anyone from (among) kings...’ But the analysis as a verb is more likely in this context, since it is clear from other attestations that such a verb exists.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Stem
Built from the noun /hantawatt(i)-/ ‘king’, the present lexeme is a factitive verb in /-a-(ti)/ (Sasseville 2021a:38f.).
[AH.B.]