/ist(a)ral-/, í-sà-tara/i-la-
‘chair (?)’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- subst, neuter
- ID
- 1460
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/ist(a)ral-/, í-sà-tara/i-la-
‘chair (?)’1.1.1Transmission
Attested in two inscriptions from Tabal, the occurrences of the present lexeme both date to between 740 and 730 BCE.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
| abl./instr. | /ist(a)raladi/ | í-sà-tara/i-la-ti | KAYSERİ, §10 (Tabal) |
| [i]-sà-[t]ara/i-la-ti | SULTANHAN, §30 (Tabal) |
In both attestations, the word occurs sentence initially and hosts a chain of clitics beginning with 〈=ba=wa=...〉. The restoration of SULTANHAN, §30 is based on the parallel in KAYSERİ, §10, following Meriggi 1967b:122.
[AH.B.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
The assignment of the present lexeme to the word family around */is-/ ‘to sit’ is very likely correct, and thus the phonological interpretation can be deemed relatively certain, although it remains unclear whether the first /a/ is real or merely graphically mandated. The word family includes several like formations such as /isan-/ ‘couch, bed (?)’ and /ist(a)ratt(a)-/ ‘throne’, and the suffixes employed here are well-known from other words. Like other lexemes from the same family, /ist(a)ral(a)-/ features the sign 〈sà〉 instead of any of the other SA signs, indicating that the sibilant was pronounced /ʃ/, although the relevant orthographic convention had largely been abandoned by the 8th century BCE, see Rieken 2010b:658f.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
For a long time, it remained unclear which word family the present lexeme belonged to, i.e. */is-/ ‘to sit’ (as such attested in CLuw., while HLuw. relies on the derived formation /asa-(i)/ ‘to sit’) or /istr(i)-/ ‘hand’ (cf. e.g. Starke 1990a:418 n. 1508, and somewhat undecided Hawkins 2000a:470), for in contrast to all other known members of the word family, the attestations of the present lexeme do not include one of the otherwise ubiquitously used logograms such as THRONUS/MENSA (sign *294) or SOLIUM (*299) in their spelling. Still, scholars have generally favoured the link with the verb ‘to sit’, and the contexts of attestation suggest it to be the more likely of the options, resulting in a semantically quite broad ‘chair’ being assigned here. As it is, the word is used within partially parallel curse formulae in KAYSERİ, §10 and SULTANHAN, §30, the latter of which runs: [i]-sà-[t]ara/i-la-ti-pa-wa/i-ta-a SUPER+ra/i “PES”-wa/i+ra/i, approx. /istraladi=ba=wa=tta sarra awidi/, ‘He (shall) come up from (his) chair’, probably meaning ‘to be unseated’. Only further attestations can narrow the semantic interpretation of the word.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Stem
Ultimately based on the root */is-/ ‘to sit’ (only attested in other derivations in HLuw., e.g. /ist(a)ratt(a)-/ ‘throne’), the present noun is derived with the suffixes /-tar-/ (perhaps subsequently syncopated) and /-al-/ (see Melchert 2003b:196f.). Although the grammatical gender is not evident from the attested cases, forms with the instrument suffix /-al-/ are typically neuter gender, and the same is hence assumed for this lexeme.
[AH.B.]
For the derivational base see CLuw. /is-(ti)/.