wedrẽñne/i-
‘of a city-state’
- Language
- Lycian A
- Class
- Derivative
- Grammar
- adj
- ID
- 1891
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Lycian A
wedrẽñne/i-
‘of a city state’1.1.1Transmission
This lexeme is attested five times in three inscriptions, coming from two separate areas. None of the three inscriptions can be dated based on historical considerations.
[I.Y.]
1.1.2Forms
| nom. sg. c. | wedrẽñni | TL 150.7 (Rhodiapolis) |
| dat. sg. | wedrẽñni | TL 149.9 (Rhodiapolis) |
| wedrẽñni | TL 149.12 (Rhodiapolis) | |
| nom. pl. c. | wẹḍṛ[ẽñ]ṇ[i] | TL 101.5 (Limyra) |
| gen. adj. nom. pl. c. | wedrẽñnehi | TL 149.3 (Rhodiapolis) |
1.1.3Graphic Features
Despite the heavy damage of TL 101.5 wẹḍṛ[ẽñ]ṇ[i], the reconstruction is reasonably secure.
[I.Y.]
1.1.4Meaning
The adjective wedrẽñne/i- occurs four times as the epithet of the goddess Malija, syncretized with Greek Athena, and one time as the adjective applied to unspecified gods. Following Neumann 1967b:36, the theonym Malija with the epithet wedrẽñne/i- is commonly taken as an equivalent and perhaps a calque of the Greek combination Ἀθηνᾶ πολίας ‘Athena of the city-state’, which is attested in Greek inscriptions emanating from Lycian Phaselis and the Pamphylian towns. This proposal, lately endorsed in Sh. Hawkins 2013a:127, supports the derivation of wedrẽñne/i- from wedre/i- ‘city-state, polis (?)’. A competing suggestion is to interpret wedrẽñne/i- as an adjective derived from the toponym Rhodiapolis (Serangeli 2015a:382). While four of the five occurrences of wedrẽñne/i- are indeed attested in the inscriptions from Rhodiapolis, the fifth one is linked to Limyra, while the likely base noun wedre/i- occurs in Antiphellos. Therefore, the alternative approach appears to be unnecessarily restrictive. Thus said, one must acknowledge that wedre/i- was also used as a proper noun, and one cannot exclude that Rhodiapolis was one of the towns that came to be known as “The polis”. Perhaps the Lycians calqued the second part of the Greek compound Ῥοδιά-πολις.
[I.Y.]
1.1.5Stem
Under the proposed interpretation, wedrẽñne/i- is derived from wedre/i- ‘city-state (?)’ with the productive (ethnicon) suffix ‑ñne/i-. In Lycian, this adjectival suffix is usually attached to toponyms, which supports the assumption that wedre/i- could be secondarily used as a proper noun.
[I.Y.]
For the derivational base see Lyc. A wedre/i-.