/zala/, za-la
‘beside (?)’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- adv
- ID
- 2476
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/zala/, za-la
‘beside (?)’1.1.1Transmission
The lexeme is attested five times in the corpus, with the earliest attestation belonging to the SÜDBURG inscription and dating to the second half of the 13th century BCE. Later attestations can be found in Karkamiš and Tabal and date to between the late 10th and the 8th century BCE.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
| indecl. | /zala/ | za-la | KARKAMIŠ A2+3, §9 (Karkamiš) |
| za4-la | KARKAMIŠ A21, §4 (Karkamiš) | ||
| za/i-la | SÜDBURG, §4 | ||
| SÜDBURG, §5b | |||
| za/i-ara/i | TOPADA, §8 (Tabal) |
The attestations from SÜDBURG §4 and 4§5b as well as one from TOPADA §8 cannot be assigned with absolute certainty to the lexeme /zala/, because there is one more occurrence of the same spelling 〈za/i-la〉 in SÜDBURG and a slightly changed one in TOPADA §23 with the same reading possible, yet those do not appear to represent the same lexeme. Instead, they seem to be an instance of the adverb /zila/ ‘then’. It therefore becomes evident that the identification of the spelling 〈za/i-la〉 with either /zala/ or /zila/ rests not on evidence found within the form itself accessed via its spelling, but on how its syntactic position and semantics are interpreted within the context of the clause.
[AH.B.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
The evidence from Karkamiš leaves little doubt over the phonological shape of the present lexeme, especially since HLuw. also features the related preverb /zalan/. However, this certainty is somewhat tempered by the attestations found in the SÜDBURG and TOPADA inscriptions, because the values /za/ and /zi/ are not distinguished in the early stages of HLuw. nor in some instances in later TOPADA, which makes use of a number of highly idiosyncratic signs (Hawkins 2000a:452, 460f.).
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
The lexeme /zala/ occurs exclusively in directly pre-verbal position, comparable to /zalan/, but in variable contexts and with a number of different verbs (cf. Rieken 2019b:310 n. 2). Thus it can be found preceding the verbs /tama-(di)/ ‘to build’, /ari-(ti)/ ‘to raise’, /isnu(wa)-(i)/ ‘to set, to settle’, and *261.PUGNUS-ru- ‘to support’. If Rieken 2019b’s suggestion to compare /zala/ and /zalan/ to similar pairs found e.g. in Hittite /anda/ and /andan/ (for details see Boroday & Yakubovich 2018a) is correct, then it may also have a similar semantic relationship to /zalan/ ‘aside?’, e.g. ‘beside’ vel sim. In combination with the different verbs, this could result in the following proposed meanings: /zala tama-/ ‘to build beside(?)’, /zala ari-/ ‘to raise beside(?)’, /zala isnu(wa)-/ ‘to sit beside(?)’, and /zala *261.PUGNUS-ru-/ ‘to subsidise(?)’. The contexts easily permit the respective interpretations, but none force it.
Outdated is the interpretation by Starke 1990a:351 incl. n. 1241, who regards /zala/ as meaning ‘umgekehrt’.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Derivatives
For the lemma head see PAnat. *zeh1-/*zī-.