wedre/i-

This lexeme is attested one, possibly two times. The assured attestation belongs to an epitaph, while the problematic one is attested in the Lycian A part of the Xanthos Obelisk (about 400 BCE).

[I.Y.]

nom. sg.	wedri	TL 56.4 (Antiphellos)
dat./loc. pl.	wedre	TL 44b.30 (Xanthos)

The problematic form wedre occurs at the end of a list of geographic names. It can be either a form of the common noun ‘in the countries’, summarizing the preceding list, or more likely, the form of a toponym derived from the noun ‘country, land’. Cf. another place name udreki (TL 26.21), which is likely derived from the same stem. Furthermore, cf. Lycian coin legends wedrẽi (M 143), wedewiẽ (M 148), and wedrewi (M 146), which all must represent adjectives derived from a town name Wedre(/i)-. From the typological viewpoint, cf. French Provence, ultimately going back to Latin provincia ‘province’.

[I.Y.]

The noun under discussion is mentioned as the agent of punishment in TL 56, being modified by the adjective wehñteze/i- ‘of Phellos’. Because either the same noun or its derivative occurs in the list of city states, and because its another likely derivative wedrẽñne/i- demonstrably corresponds to Gk. πολιάς ‘of the city’, it seems reasonable to assume that the attestation in TL 56 likewise refers to the city-state of Phellos. This approach is adopted in Laroche 1979c:67 and accepted in Neumann 2007a:422. The meaning ‘city-state’ proposed here should probably be distinguished from ‘town’ proper, for which see Lyc. tetere/i-.

A different approach is advocated in Schürr 1997c:132f. According to this alternative interpretation, the agents of punishment are the nymphs, whose Phellos sanctuary is attested through later Greek inscriptions. Schürr (ibid.:131ff.) argues in support of his solution that the agents of punishment in Lycian curse formulae usually have supernatural character. This is, however, not always the case: cf. e.g. marazija miñtaha ‘judgement of the mindis-authority’, which is mentioned three times as the agent of punishment in the Lycian curse formulae. While it may be true that the majority of avengers in the Lycian curse formulae are divine, the force of this statistical argument is clearly weaker than the manifest synchronic connection between wedre/i- and its derivatives referring to individual city states. Therefore, despite the endorsement of Melchert (DLL:79) and the availability of a root etymology linking the hypothetical wedre/i- ‘nymph’ to the Indo-European root for ‘water’, this alternative remains inferior to the suggestion discussed in the previous paragraph.

[I.Y.]

The appellative wedre/i- can be best analyzed as a mutation stem, although the place-name wedre- may well represent an e-stem, as is the case of many other Lycian toponyms.

[I.Y.]

1. wedrẽñne/i-

For the lemma head see Lyc. A *wedr-/udr-.