*ósā-

The lexeme can be found eight times in the HLuw. corpus in inscriptions mainly from Karkamiš und Hama, which date to the 9^th and 8^th centuries BCE. The oldest attestation originates from Malatya and dates back to the 12^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

The meaning of this word has been clear for a very long time, see already Hrozný 1933a:18. With long since corrected sign readings. Aiding the interpretation is the spelling, as the word is usually accompanied or represented by at least one logogram, SOLIUM (sign *299) a stylised version of a chair, at times combined with the logogram MENSA/THRONUS (sign *294). Both signs are sufficiently pictographic to give a good impression of the general sense, which is fully borne out by the contexts it appears in. The contexts also show that /asa-/ can denote real-world objects, although it remains unclear whether the shape of those is the same in each case.

[AH.B.]

This noun is derived from the same root as HLuw. verb /asa-⁽ⁱ⁾/ ‘to sit’ (cf. Sasseville 2021a:342f. and the CLuwian athematic verb /is-^(ti)/ ‘to sit’, Sasseville 2021a:264f.) and /isan-/ ‘couch, bed (?)’ etc., albeit as a nominal formation, see Melchert 2014f:255. As is plain from the attested forms, the word is not subject to i-mutation and is thus a common gender stem in /-a-/.

[AH.B.]

This noun is attested once in an inscription from the Middle Kaystros valley and dated to the 16^th regnal year of King Artaxerxes. This leaves three options of absolute dating, ranging from the mid-5^th to the mid-4^th century BCE depending on which Achaemenid king with such a name is chosen. 

[I.Y.]

Note that LW 50.6 [.]asaãν is unlikely to belong to the same paradigm. Although this form is transliterated as [?] asaãν in Gusmani 1964a:267, the photograph of LW 50 suggests that the missing sign at the beginning of the line is adjacent to asaãν, and some traces of it are visible, although the sign shape cannot be determined. Therefore, [.]asaãν probably begins with a consonant; see under Lyd. [k]asa-.

[I.Y.]

The photograph of LW 41 published in Buckler 1924a is not conducive to reading the two initial letters, nor does it help to identifying the final letter of the form under discussion. The reading offered above follows Gusmani 1964a:264.

[I.Y.]

The preceding part of the inscription mentions the erection or dedication of an architectural installation (tacν). According to Gusmani 1964a:66, ạṣaν is either a predicate or an apposition to tacν. Pursuing the second hypothesis, one can propose the meaning ‘seat, throne’, which would imply that Lydian asa- is a lexical cognate of HLuw. /asa-/ ‘seat’. An additional argument in favor of this interpretation is the existence of Lyd. asina-, also a name of a monumental object. Naturally, the proposed analysis may in the future be invalidated by an improved reading of the form under discussion.

[I.Y.]

This is an a-stem noun, presumably derived from the verbal root ‘to sit’, which is not preserved as such in the available Lydian texts, perhaps due to chance.

[I.Y.]