anaθemata

Attested in the so-called Shorter and Longer Strategos Votive Inscriptions, both from Side, the latter is of unknown date (see the discussion s.v. śa) and the former is dated by Nollé 2001a:630 to the end of the 4^th / beginning of the 3^rd c. (see there for discussion).

[Zs.S.]

acc. pl.	anaθemataś	S3, 3
		S4, 4

The attestations follow Nollé 2001a:637 checked against the photographs of Darga 1967a:Res. 8 (= Neumann 1968a:Taf. I.2 = Brixhe 1969a:Planche II) and Zinko & Zinko 2019a:426 Fig. 21.5. Its segmentation and, accordingly, grammatical form is heavily debated. It is identified as acc. pl. by Ševoroškin 1975a:164 with n. 20 and Pérez Orozco 2003a:106, Pérez Orozco 2007a:134, 136 (cf. also Darga 1967a:64 and Nollé 2001a:637) on contextual grounds.

However, Eichner 1988b:45-48, 51-53 picked up an idea of Neumann 1968a:86f. with n. 1, 91f. (but abandoned in Neumann 1978b:873 n. 5) that anaθemataś should be segmented as anaθema taś with a verbal form taś ‘hat … aufgestellt’. This was followed by Zinko & Zinko 2019a:420, who misleadingly present Eichner’s proposal as a fact, without referring to the alternative view, to Nollé’s rejection (see below), or even to Eichner. The arguments for the segmentation were as follows:

Neumann 1968a:87 argued that “oblique Formen viel seltener in eine andere Sprache entlehnt werden als der Nom. Sg.” Although this is correct, the underlying form could simply have been anaθemata, i.e. nom.-acc. pl., which is a perfect starting point for borrowing as Neumann’s own examples prove: the borrowing of a plural form and reinterpreting it as a singular is cross-linguistically well-known (e.g., English cake → pl. cakes → German Keks → pl. Kekse, see already Neumann 1968a:87 n. 1, Neumann 1978b:873 n. 5 with further examples, followed by Nollé 2001a:637).

Eichner 1988b:47f. argued that it would be strange that a neuter word is borrowed as a commune word implied by the form anaθemataś. This is again not a decisive argument, since gender can be reinterpreted during the borrowing, as German die Butter from Late Latin pl. neuter *butyra provides a perfect analogy, not to mention that gender can be analogically changed (cf. German dialectal der Butter). Furthermore, our still extremely limited knowledge of Sidetic declension does not even allow to decide if there was grammatical gender in Sidetic.

Eichner 1988b:48 with n. 13 furthermore recognized that the presence of the dental necessarily leads to the above mentioned assumption of borrowing a (neuter) plural form and reinterpreting it as a singular (commune, in his views). Although he called this “bedenkliche Sonderannahme”, this is completely normal, as we have just seen it (Eichner rejects the reanalysis of the type “die Butter”, claiming that “ein derartiger Faktor kann fürs Sidetische schwerlich vorausgesetzt werden”, which is simply not correct). Eichner also argues that such reinterpretations involve “mengenweise gebrauchte Güter”, which would not be the case of anaθemataś. This is, however, completely possible also in cases of votive offerings, not to mention that the description “mengenweise gebrauchte Güter” does not necessarily fit the semantics of “cake”, either.

In other words, the traditional interpretation as acc. pl. is unproblematic. Therefore, the question is if Eichner’s interpretation provides a better fitting analysis. As already mentioned above, Eichner’s proposal was rejected by Nollé 2001a:637, “da wir in den übrigen Dedikationen immer wieder die diesem Genre eigene Kürze finden und nicht auf solche Verbformen treffen”. This might be correct (it depends on the interpretation of maljadaś, see s.v.), but it does not exclude the possibility of a verb in anaθemataś. The problem with Eichner’s proposal is twofold: First, since we are dealing with a votive inscription, the presence of a verb is possible, but not necessary (note that both inscriptions present the word ośad of unknown meaning, but a verbal meaning is one of the candidates, see s.v.). Second, Eichner’s proposal leads to a 3rd. sg. pret. act. ending -ś, which would be paralleled only by the Hittite ending -š, which was, however, in regression already in Hittite times (cf. EDHIL:688). It is not impossible, but it would be remarkable if this ending would have been kept only in Sidetic (for the other candidate within Sidetic see s.v. maljadaś; note that the prehistory of ‹ś› is debated [see the very different treatments by Pérez Orozco 2007a:133 and Zinko & Zinko 2019a:420f.] and thus, it cannot currently help). These problems do not exclude the proposal of Eichner, but they make it less probable in comparison with the theory of an acc. pl., which is formally perfectly fitting. Thus, it is the analysis as acc. pl. which is followed here.

[Zs.S.]

There is no doubt regarding its meaning due to its Greek origin, cf. under Origin (Darga 1967a:64; Neumann 1968a:86; Eichner 1988b:45f., Eichner 1993a:128; Nollé 2001a:646; Pérez Orozco 2003a:106, Pérez Orozco 2007a:136, 139).

[Zs.S.]

The word is obviously a loan from Greek (Darga 1967a:64; Neumann 1968a:86; Nollé 2001a:637; Pérez Orozco 2005a:75, Pérez Orozco 2007a:136).

[Zs.S.]

Last updated: 28 August 2020