nak

This lexeme occurs three time in the text of a legal agreement found in the precinct of Artemis in Sardis.

[I.Y.]

indecl.	nak	LW 24.19 (2x) (Sardis)
	[n]ak	LW 24.20 (Sardis)

These forms are considered together with instances of a clause-initial particle nak in Gusmani 1964a:169, but such an analysis is syntactically difficult and etymologically unlikely (cf. below). The restoration [n]ak is reasonably certain.

[I.Y.]

The particle nak appears before each of the coordinated elements, aaraν, pira=k, and dẽtν ẽmν, which are summarized by the indefinite pronoun nã=qid ‘whatever’ in LW 24.18. Thus the context speaks for the meaning ‘either / or’, or perhaps ‘both / and’, as suggested already in Sayce 1925a:34.

[I.Y.]

As justly observed in Gusmani 1964a:169, nak in this particular meaning can hardly be separated from the particle nãν ‘further, again (?)’, even though Gusmani 1964a’s own analysis of this particle is not conclusive. The second element of the compound is, of course, the historical clitic =k ‘and’. In fact, the repetition of nak in LW 24 can be directly compared with the pair nã=mλ … nã=k=mλ in the earlier inscription LW 54, so the fusion that yielded nak may have represented a process within the history of the attested Lydian language. The disappearance of the nasalization in nak appears to testify to the semi-stressed status of these forms, which presumably formed an accentual unit together with the nouns to follow. It is possible, albeit by no means assured, that the occurrence of the etymologically unrelated clause-initial particle nak earlier in LW 24 was an additional trigger for the selection of spelling without nasalization.

[I.Y.]

For the lemma head see Lyd. nãν.