qñtati

This lexeme is attested in the trilingual inscription of the Letoon, dated to 337 BCE (Wagner 2011a:156 with further literature).

[D.S.]

nom. sg. (?)

qñtati

N 320.15 (Xanthos)

The word has generated much controversy in the literature. Laroche 1979c:68 leaves open its grammatical role, whether as a verb or a noun in apposition to the personal name xesñtedi. Eichner 1983a:62 (and Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:83f.) takes the preverb ese as evidence for analyzing qñtati as a verb and suggests emending it to qñta〈te〉=ti, in order to retrieve a preterit verbal form followed by a relative pronoun (similarly Carruba 1977a:298). Thus, he translates the passage as:

me=xbaitẽ : zã : ese=xesñtedi : qñta〈te〉=ti : se=pigrẽi (N 320.14-15)

‘They took(?) the field(?), which both Kesindelis and Pigres cultivated.’

Differently, Garrett 1991a:21 interprets qñtati as a verbal form of the 3^rd plural present (with loss of nasalization) and translates it as ‘to till’, thus separating the passage cited above into two sentences. Melchert 2018b follows him regarding the analysis with a relative pronoun, but suggests emending to qñta〈ti〉=ti, in which the omission of a second sequence ti by haplography would be easier to account for as a scribal mistake than anything else.

In the new analysis suggested here, there is no motivation for emending the sentence, since qñtati can be taken as the title of Kesindelis. The position of the preverb ese after the verb xbaitẽ instead of before occurs elsewhere in Lycian; cf. the preverb epi in TL 44a.20, TL 84.4. Thus, the whole sentence can be interpreted simply as:

me=xbaitẽ : zã : ese=xesñtedi : qñtati : se=pigrẽi (N 320.14-15)

‘Kesindelis, the qñtati, and Pigres irrigated the field.’

[D.S.]

Interpreting qñtati as a title, one should compare the root qñt- with Lyc. B qñtbe-, qñtile/i-, qñtra- and the Lyc. A personal name qñturahi (TL 59, N 320.10, N 342Korkut & Tekoğlu 2019a, Christiansen 2019b:114f.). Unfortunately, the meanings of all these lexemes are obscure and, thus, no semantic assignment can be suggested for qñtati.

[D.S.]

If qñtati is a title, it might represent a formation in -e/i-, derived from a non-attested *qñtata-; cf. Lyc. A xñtawata- ‘kingship, rule’ → xñtawate/i- ‘king’.

[D.S.]

No reconstruction possible. Contra Neumann 2007a:305, qñt- cannot be etymologically related to Hitt. ḫandā(i)-^(mi), because the Lycian labio-velar q- can only go back to either *k^u̯ or *H^u̯ (Kloekhorst 2008a:124f., Sideltsev & Yakubovich 2016a:121).

[D.S.]