warptoki-^(d)

This lexeme is attested four times in curse formulae of four different funerary inscriptions. All of them are found in Sardis. The inscription LW 8 can be dated to the 5^th century BCE whereas other texts are datable only more loosely, to the 5^th or 4^th century BCE.    

[I.Y.]

The form warptok clearly represents a graphic abbreviation of warptokid. It occurs in the inscription where other graphic abbreviations are also attested.

[I.Y.]

The position in the apodosis of a curse formula calls for a strong negative meaning, as already seen in Littmann 1916a:45. Accordingly, the translation ‘to punish’ is adopted in Gusmani 1964a:221 and much of the subsequent literature. In order to go further, one has to address the etymological connections of the stem under discussion. A possible tie with Hitt. warpa- ‘enclosure’ is explored in Melchert 1994a:371, but one may wonder whether the meaning ‘to enclose’, even if it refers to imprisonment, defines an appropriately harsh punishment within the context of a formulaic curse. Alternatively, one can think of a connection with HLuw. /warp(i)-/ ‘weapon’, which would relegate the discourse to the familiar domain of physical violence, i.e. ‘to attack’ (cf. Lyd. wcpaqẽni-^(t)). While preferable on semantic grounds, this solution cannot be regarded as final until all the details of the assumed derivation are clarified.

[I.Y.]

The verbal i-stems derived from abstract nouns in -oka- and having the property of leniting the verbal ending in 3sg. pres. were explained as reflexes of stems with unstressed *-i̯e/o- suffixes in Melchert 1992a:47f. The base of the derivation is presumably the unattested abstract noun *warptoka-, possibly meaning ‘attack’. While the accented suffix ‑oka- is independently attested as the suffix of abstract nouns (cf. šaroka-, aλtoka-), the function of the hypothetical suffix -t- does not lend itself to unambiguous clarification. As a mere possibility, one can compare the Luwian suffix -att(i)- forming secondary nouns from nominal stems (Yakubovich 2015b, § 6.2).       

[I.Y.]