deze-

This hapax is attested on TL 44, the inscription on the pillar of Xanthos. The pillar is dated stylistically to around 400 BCE and contextually to shortly after the ascension of the Persian emperor Artaxerxes II in 405-404 BCE (Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:19f.).

[O.B.]

dat./loc. sg.

dezi

TL 44d.33 (Xanthos)

The reading as dat./loc. sg. cannot be definitely ascertained. If the word is an i-mutated stem (see Stem), a nom. sg. or an acc. sg. reading is equally possible.

[O.B.]

The word appears in a negated clause with the verb tadi ‘he puts (horizontally)’, i.e. ni=ke dezi : mutala : apñ tadi : tetbeti : lacra. According to Shevoroshkin 2002a:211 the word means ‘enlargement’ and stands in the nom. sg., but this analysis is not pressing. Considering that the verb is tadi ‘he puts (horizontally)’, a dat./loc. form is fitting, i.e. ‘nor shall he (mutala tetbeti) put the lacra back in the dezi.’. The true sense of dezi remains unclear, however.

One possible alternative analysis is to segment the beginning of the aforementioned sentence as ni=ke=de zi. Thus, zi would be comparable to Lyc. A za- ‘allotment, etc.’ (or *ze-, which possibly underlies Lyc. A ddeze-^(di) ‘to assign a share of a grave (vel sim.) (?)’), yielding a passable translation, i.e. ‘nor shall he (mutala tetbeti) put the lacra back in the allotment’. Thus, the element -de- would be an instance of the particle =de. Note that this particle is not attested elsewhere after a sequence ni=ke, which may be due to chance on account of the small Lycian B corpus.

[O.B.]

In the heading of this lemma, the word is given as a common gender e-stem. This is due to the proposed derivational relationship to Lyc. A ddeze-^(di) ‘to assign a share of a grave (vel sim.) (?)’ (DLL:10, Sasseville 2021a:208), which requires an e-stem (cf. Sasseville 2021a:206-208). However, an i-mutating stem or an a-stem cannot be excluded.

[O.B.]