/pibassa-(i)/, /pibissa-(i)/
‘to give, grant’
- Language
- Common Luwian
- Grammar
- verb
- ID
- 1706
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/pibassa-(i)/, pi-pa-sa-
‘to grant’1.1.1Transmission
With nine attestations, this verb is relatively well-attested in the HLuw. corpus. It can be found in inscriptions from Tabal in the centre and Malatya towards the north-east of the HLuw. area, but also from the south and south-east in Karkamiš and Maraş. The relevant texts are dated to between the late 10th and the late 8th centuries BCE.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
| 1sg. pres. ind. act. | /pibassawi/ | pi-pa-sa-wa/i-i | ALEPPO 2, §17 (Tell Ahmar) |
| /pibissawi?/ | pi-pi-sa-wa/i | TELL AHMAR 6, §28 (Tell Ahmar) | |
| 3sg. pres. ind. act. | /pibassai/ | pi-pa-sa-i | BOHÇA, §3 (Tabal) |
| /pibassaya/ | pi-pa-sa-ia | BOHÇA, §5 (Tabal) | |
| BOHÇA, §9 (Tabal) | |||
| 3sg. pret. ind. act. | /pibassatta/ | pi-pa-sa-ta | MARAŞ 1, §11 (Maraş) |
| KARKAMIŠ A23, §4 (Karkamiš) | |||
| 3sg. impv. act. | /pibassattu/ | pi-pa-sa-tu | ŞIRZI, §4 (Malatya) |
| BOR, §11 (Tabal) |
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
With a sizeable number of attestations, all spelt syllabically, the phonological interpretation of this lexeme is reasonably certain. That also counts for the quality of the second consonant, where, as a result of the reduplication, the root onset underwent lenition from /p/ to /b/ in intervocalic position (see already Čop 1961a:66, and more recently Sasseville 2021a:139 n. 16). The only uncertain issue appears to be the quality of the root vowel, which is clearly and legibly spelt with 〈pa〉 (*334) in all attested forms but TELL AHMAR 6, §28, which features 〈pi〉 (*66) in that position. It is clear that both forms constitute contractions from an earlier */pibiyassa-/, see Sasseville 2021a:492, but such is usually expected to be due to regional variation – in fact CLuw. shows pipissa- ‘to give’, see under lemma – and does not account for both forms being found in Tell Ahmar HLuw.Even so, the explanation given in Frotscher 2012a:169f. is probably unnecessarily complex. He assumes two different stems, one with full grade, one with zero grade.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
The meaning ‘to grant’ (“gewähren”) was first suggested by Meriggi 1934a:84f. on the basis of the BOHÇA evidence, and it has largely withstood the test of time. Based on the morphological make-up of the verb, Oettinger 1979a:510, 564 was able to assign the literal meaning ‘to give repeatedly’, now understood as an imperfective. Sasseville 2021a:498-500 prefers to rely on the basic meaning ‘to give’ also for /pibassa-/ and suggests that the choice of /pibassa-/ over the simplex /piya-/ ‘to give’ is determined by the grammatical number of the object, with /pibassa-/ being preferred for plural objects because of its inherently distributive meaning. This is, superficially, borne out by the morphosyntax of the contexts, yet remains unlikely because HLuw. does not usually distribute verbal stems according to object number. Instead, the contexts strongly suggest that the meaning is not so much distributive but iterative and imperfective in the sense of ‘to give repeatedly, grant’. As Dempsey 2015a:231f. notes, it is, for a lack of either a non-reduplicated form */pissa-/ or a non-suffixed form */pipiya-/ vel sim., Dempsey 2015a:231f., 300 considers a possible attestation of /pipa-/ to occur in TÜNP 2, §3. However, the text is so badly damaged especially in that spot that it does not seem advisable to draw any conclusions based on this alleged form. not clear which morpheme is contributing which semantic component to the basic denotation of the simplex.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Stem
Ultimately based on the verb /piya-(i)/ ‘to give’, the present lexeme is derived by reduplication from a derived form */pissa-/, i.e. with the suffix /-ssa-/, not attested in either of the Luwian varieties (Sasseville 2021a:498-500). As is typical for verbs in /-ssa-/, these belong to the ḫi-conjugation.
[AH.B.]
1.2 Cuneiform Luwian
pipišša-(i)
‘to give’1.2.1Transmission
The sole attestation of the verb is found in NS manuscript of a festival text.
[E.R.]
1.2.2Forms
| 2sg. impv. act. | pí-pí-iš-ša | KUB 35.133 iii 17 | (CTH 665, LNS) |
1.2.3Meaning
The imperfective form governs both a personal indirect and a direct object. It occurs in a chain of sentences with various verbs of bestowing and in which the supplicant requests a list of blessings for the city of Ḫattuša, among them growth and grapevine. A meaning similar to ‘to give, let down on, release’ is therefore to be expected for pipišša-. Also the morphological relationship with piya-(i) ‘to give’ as a reduplicated stem with the suffix -šša-(i) is immediately clear and recognized in the handbooks (DLL:82, Oettinger 1979a:510, CLL:177, Dempsey 2015a:232, Sasseville 2021a:498). The recognition of the derivational process confirms the meaning ‘to give’.
[E.R.]
For the derivational base see CLuw. piya-(i).