mlu-

This lexeme, whose exact reading is debated, is found in the grave inscription containing a long biography datable to shortly after the beginning of the reign of Alexander the Great.

[D.S.]

3pl. pret. ind. act.

mluñte

TL 29.11 (Tlos)

Schürr 2001e:135 reads me(=)uñte, but Melchert (DLL:40f.) does not find this convincing, since the preceding context would make the conjunction me unlikely.

[D.S.]

Melchert (DLL:40f.) hesitantly suggests the meaning ‘tend to, care for’. On exclusively formal grounds, a connection of mlu- with the PIE root *mleu̯h₂- (verbum dicendi) seems possible, but difficult to prove. Hence this could be a development from ‘to speak’ > ‘to care for’ or ‘to take care of’. The word km̃mẽti ‘how(ever) many’ could serve as a subject and tddẽta ‘nourishing, food (?)’ as a direct object. Thus, the meaning ‘to take care of (the food)’ in the sense of distributing it to the army could be adopted.

se=i=(ẽ)nẽ telẽzijẽ tddẽta mluñte w[..]qrai[j]e km̃mẽti

‘And however many took care of the food(?) of the armies… (vel sim.)’

The word ẽnẽ ‘under’ may function as a preverb modifying the semantics of mlu- slightly, cf. ẽnẽ sm̃mate in TL 44b.12 (Sasseville 2021a:52).

[D.S.]

The verb mlu- is likely to be a root verb (Type II) (see Sasseville 2021a:304f.).

[D.S.]

The Indo-European etymological connection with the root of speaking *mleuh₂- suggested under Meaning is possible, but not yet provable due to the uncertainty of the meaning of the verb. Likewise, the highly tempting inner-Anatolian connection between Lyc. A mlu- and Luw. malwan- (and HLuw. ma-lu-wa/i) is weakened by the lack of a solid semantic assignment.

[D.S.]

This lemma was written together with the intern Jonas Döll.