afar(i)-

This noun is attested once in the text of a legal agreement found in the precinct of Artemis in Sardis. It was traditionally dated to the 5^th or 4^th century BCE, but a new and more precise date 542-541 BCE is offered in Euler & Sasseville 2019a:134. The evaluation of the new dating remains sub judice and will depend on accepting or rejecting the identification of the god Qλdãn- mentioned in the same inscription with King Croesus.

[I.Y.]

The emendation to afarλs proposed in Schürr 2004b:196 appears to be unlikely, since in that case the relevant clause would remain without a grammatical subject. Differently, Euler & Sasseville 2019a:131f. n. 24 emends to afaril^! and takes this form as a verb.

[I.Y]

The noun afari=s is introduced as a relation or occupation that belongs or is due to someone (qλ dẽt), and features the author of the inscription as counteragent (amu=dãν). It also functions as an antecedent of the clitic pronoun =aν in the next clause LW 23.7. The subject of the next clause is prafrš(i)-, ostensibly a derivative of afar(i)-, while the predicate governing =aν is šawtaari-^(d) ‘to protect, oversee (vel sim.)’. These facts are broadly compatible with the etymological connection between afar(i)- and Hittite ḫappariye/a-^(mi) ‘to trade’, offered in Carruba 1959a:35. Although the word-initial Anatolian “laryngeals” are preserved in Lydian in several cases (cf. kof(u)-, kastaλc(i)-), the absence of the initial consonant in this case is closely paralleled by the parallel exceptional feature of Lycian epirije-^(ti), if cognate with Hitt. ḫappariye/a-^(mi) (DLL:15; however cf. Oettinger 2021a who takes κάπηλος ‘merchant’ as a Lydian loanword connecting it to the same Hittite lexeme.). The phrase citoλ=s puk afari=s qλ dẽt amu=dãν can be literally translated “to whom there is citoλ- or trade with me’.

The meaning ‘document’ offered in Carruba 1959a and (with some variations) in much of the subsequent literature, including Gusmani 1964a:52, does not appear to represent the simplest solution. A noun derived from the verb meaning ‘to trade’ may merely refer to the transfer of property, and such an interpretation would also be contextually appropriate. The translation ‘descendant’, offered in Melchert 1997a:37 n. 4, is based on the assumption that the word for property in the same clause is dẽt-. Combinatory analysis suggests, however, that dẽt functions here as a postposition, and afar(i)-, alongside citoλ-, remains the optimal candidate for the designation of property transfer.

[I.Y.]

Synchronically, this is probably a semi-vocalic stem. The accent is likely on the second syllable, otherwise one would expect syncope to **afri-, cf. (Gérard 2005a:50). 

[I.Y.]

1. prafra-