qas-(ti)
‘to destroy’
- Language
- Lycian A
- Grammar
- verb
- ID
- 1859
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Lycian A
qas-(ti)
‘to destroy’1.1.1Transmission
This lexeme is found both in curse formulas and in military contexts.
[D.S.]
1.1.2Forms
| 3sg. pres. ind. act. | qastti | TL 150.6 (Rhodiapolis) |
| [q]a[s]tt(i) | TL 84.3 (Sura) | |
| 3sg. pret. ind. act. | qastte | TL 44a.47 (Xanthos) |
| q̣ạstte | TL 29.3 (Tlos) | |
| 3sg. impv. act. | qasttu | TL 56.4 (Antiphellos) |
1.1.3Graphic Features
For the reconstruction of the elided final vowel in [q]a[s]tt(i) (TL 84.3), cf. Melchert (DLL:54), Neumann 2007a:298.
[D.S.]
1.1.4Meaning
The verb qas-(ti) is analyzed as an iterative form in -s-(ti) derived from qa-(ti). It is found in a Greek-Lycian bilingual inscription (TL 56), where it is rendered with Greek ἐπιτρίβω ‘to destroy’, and thus translated as ‘to destroy’ (thus Heubeck 1989a:54, Hajnal 1995a:161 n. 180, Schürr 1997c:127f., DLL:54, Sasseville 2021a:454). The stems qa-(ti) and qas-(ti) co-occur within curses formulas and have punishing agents as subjects and the offender as direct object. However, only qas-(ti) occurs within a military context, in which it takes a building (ñtemle-) as its direct object (TL 29.3). The iterative notion ‘to strike repeatedly’ and thus ‘to destroy’ is semantically appropriate for the verb qas-(ti). It is also noteworthy that the verb qas-(ti) in military contexts is accompanied by the substantive erbbe/i- ‘battle, war’ either in the dative/locative plural (TL 29.3) or in the ablative/instrumental (TL 44a.47), in whichever case it indicates how exactly the action of destroying took place.
[D.S.]
1.2 Hittite
kuwaške/a-(mi)
‘to strike repeatedly’1.2.1Literature / Comments
Oettinger 1979a:96 n. 23, 97 n. 25.
2. Reconstruction
2.1Reconstruction
The iterative Lycian verb qas-(ti) can be equated with Hitt. kuwaške/a-(mi) ‘to strike repeatedly’ and reconstructed as Proto-Anatolian *gu̯hn̥-sk̂é/ó- (Hajnal 1995a:161 n. 180). In Lycian, the accent was retracted to the root vowel in analogy to the base verb, which caused the loss of the thematic vowel of the stem of the suffix *-sk̂e/o- and the transfer to the athematic inflection, i.e. -s-(ti) (Sasseville 2021a:457-459). For the preservation of the labio-velar *gu̯h- as q- (in analogy to the bae verb), see the Reconstruction under lemma head PAnat. *gu̯hén-/*gu̯hn-´(ti).
[D.S.]