mašḫāḫit-

This lexeme is found in the festival for the Storm-god of the sky and the Sun-goddess of Arinna, involving the ašušattalla-men.

[D.S.]

nom./acc. sg. n.	ma-aš-ḫa-a-ḫi-˹ša˺	KUB 35.133 iv 9’	(CTH 665, LNS)
	ma-aš-ḫa-ḫi-š[a	KUB 35.133 iv 14’	(CTH 665, LNS)

Checked against the photograph in the Konkordanz (Mainzer Fotoarchiv).

[D.S.]

The noun mašḫāhi(t)- reflects something positive that is demanded from the gods aside from nourishment. Carruba 1982b:4 n. 6 suggests for Luwian mašḫaḫi(t)- the meaning ‘growth, prosperity’ based on HLuw. /mashani-^(ti)/, which he translates as ‘to let grow/prosper’ (followed by Starke 1990a:167f., CLL:144). However, the HLuw. verb has also been translated as ‘to favor’ by Meriggi 1967b:119, which is likewise an adequate translation and, thus, CLuw. mašḫāhi(t)- could mean ‘favor (from the gods)’ instead. This depends on the etymology of the root. Oettinger 1979a:471f. and Starke 1979a:258f. reconstruct an abstract noun in -ašḫa- as the base of all these derivatives built on the root of Hittite māi-/-i(ya)-^(ḫi) ‘to grow’ assuming that the glide of the root would have disappeared intervocalically despite the morpheme boundary, i.e. *mai-ašḫa- (followed by Sasseville 2021a:150f.). However, this is not supported from a comparative perspective with e.g. mayašša/i- ‘of the adults’ or ūmmaialla/i- ‘pertaining to the ungrowth’, in which the glide of the root is retained due to its strong attachment to the root.

A different approach would be to see the same root as that of CLuw. māššan(i)- ‘god’, i.e. a root maš-, to which an abstract noun would have been built, i.e. maš-šḫa- → *mašḫa-. The semantics of ‘favor’ originally suggested by Meriggi may thus be closer than those of ‘growing’, which has unfortunately been adopted by scholars too readily. The meaning ‘prosperity’, resulting from divine favor, may still be correct. In any case, more evidence is needed to pin down the exact semantics of this word family.

[D.S.]

The nominal formation of mašḫaḫi(t)- is an abstract noun in -aḫi(t)- n. (thus already Otten 1953a:63, Laroche 1959a:70), in which the dental is deleted before the enclitic particle =ša. The derivational base *mašḫa-, itself an abstract noun, may have become opaque to native speakers, which would motivate the redundant formation in -aḫi(t)-.

[D.S.]

For the lemma head, see CLuw. *mašḫa-.