qrds

Attested in official inscriptions, one from Kaunos of unknown date (cf. Adiego 2007a:301) and one from Kildara (the Greek text following the Carian section is palaeographically dated to the 4^th c., Robert 1950a:15).

[Zs.S.]

nom. sg. ?	qrds	C.Ki 1, 2
		C.Ka 2, 1

The attestations follow Adiego 2007a:407, checked against the photographs in Robert 1950a:Pl.VIII.1 and Frei & Marek 2000a:86. Strictly speaking, its segmentation is not fully certain due to the scriptio continua of both completely opaque inscriptions, but the re-occurrence of the sequence of ‹qrds› and especially the existence of qrdsoλ, an obvious -oλ-derivative of qrds (see s.v.) practically guarantee that the segmentation is correct (Adiego 2007a:407 argues that the sequence γrdso[-]i[ following qrds in C.Ka 2 is a figura etymologica, which would also support the segmentation, but since the meaning of γrdso[-]i[ is completely unknown, this can serve as a hint at best, see the discussion s.v.).

Due to the unintelligible inscriptions, the grammatical form of qrds cannot be clearly established, both a nom. sg. and a dat. sg. are formally possible. Since the derivative qrdsoλ implies that the -s- belongs to the stem, we are rather dealing with a nom. sg.

[Zs.S.]

Blümel & Adiego 1993a:94 compared qrds with Hittite gurta- ‘city, town’ (on its meaning see s.v.) on phonological grounds (“en cario q suele preceder a vocales posteriores a veces no recogidas gráficamente” and hence *qurd-, *qord-), but argued that even if this is correct, it can still be a substantive, a toponym or a personal name (Melchert 1998c:35 n. 6 refers to Lycian B kridesi, possibly a toponym, but leaves open whether qrds is a toponym). While Frei & Marek 2000a:107 duly reported these interpretations, they added (Frei & Marek 2000a:115) that “[z]u den Wiederholungen von qrds (1 und 8) [this is not a “Wiederholung”, as per above ‒ Zs.S.] (…) läßt sich bis auf weiteres nichts Erhellendes sagen” (literally repeated in Marek 2006a:123). Adiego 2007a:407 formulated it much more cautiously: it possibly has an “institutional” meaning due to its appearance in legal texts.

Today the origins of Carian ‹q› are better understood and it clearly continues *Hu- or *ku- (Simon 2011b:544f., Simon 2017f:387), in other words, Hittite gurta-, which is perhaps a Luwian loanword in Hittite (but a Luwian *kurta- existed anyway, see the discussion s.v.), is formally a perfect match, the suffix -s- would be then the Carian cognate of the Luwian genitival adjective suffix -ašša/i-. Since the inscriptions and passages with qrds are opaque, it is hard to prove the connection with gurta-, but since both texts are official texts, a (substantivized) adjective deriving from ‘city, town’ in some “institutional” meaning is definitely fitting (thus the rejection in Simon 2011b:543 n. 19 was not correct). A toponymic or anthroponymic interpretation is not excluded by the existence of the derivative qrdsoλ, but a toponym qrds is not expected in the opening lines of the official texts of the cities of Kbid (Kaunos, see s.v.) and Kiλara (Kildara, cf. Adiego 2007a:373) and the only fitting personal name (as a derivational basis) is Kurtis, the Luwian borrowing from Gordios (Simon 2017h; Gordios itself would not lead to qrds), but there is no reason to assume a recently borrowed Luwian personal name in the Carian sources.

[Zs.S.]