/ta(m)m(i)-/, tá-mi-

This lexeme is attested twice in the HLuw. corpus. It occurs in one of the inscriptions from Karkamiš, dating to the mid-8^th century BCE, and a letter from Tabal, written on a lead strip and dating to the late 8^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

acc. sg.	/tam(m)in/	tá-mi-na-´	KIRŞEHİR lead strip, §7 (Tabal)
dat./loc. sg.	/tam(m)i/	tá-mi	CEKKE inscr. 2, §13 (Karkamiš)

Note that the attestation tá-mi-na-´ has also been assigned to other lexemes, see /tam(i)-/ and AEDIFICIUM.

[AH.B.]

The meaning assigned to this word is mainly based on evidence from the context its only attestation occurs in, following Yakubovich 2017e:s.v. CEKKE inscr. 2, §13 runs: URBS+MI-ní-pa-wa/i 20 tá-mi 10 INFANS-ni ki-tara/i-sa (PUGNUS+PUGNUS)hi-sà-hi-mi-na, possibly /...ni=ba=wa 20 tam(m)i 10 niwaranni kitri=sa hishimina/, translating as ‘In the city, a bequest is to be bound to 20 adults (and) 10 children’ (cf. Hawkins 2000a:145).In the CEKKE attestation, the word shows singular inflection, like the following noun phrase ‘ten children’, both of which are fully expected to behave in this way within the HLuw. system of number marking. Only the numerals ‘two’ to ‘four’ trigger plural endings in the nouns they modify, whereas all higher numerals appear to lack that trigger and only ever occur with singular-marked nouns, see Bauer 2014a:88-100. Because it is coordinated with /niwarann(i)-/ ‘child’, /tam(m)i/ is, with some justification, assumed to denote a semantically related group (see Hawkins 2000a:149); further textual evidence may lead to additional fine-tuning such as a specific subgroup of adults vel sim. In fact, the attestation in KIRŞEHİR lead strip, §7 hints at just that: á-pi-ha-wa/i tá-ti-na tá-mi-na-´ ARHA sa-mi-na PUGNUS.PUGNUS-i, approx. /appi=ha=wa tadin tam(m)in ahha sammin …-li/, which Yakubovich (pers. comm.) convincingly translates as ‘Uphold (my) father, an abandoned old man!’.

[AH.B.]

The formation of the stem has been the subject of some discussion among scholars, and several different suggestions have been put forward. Firstly, it has been connected, because of very similar spelling, to HLuw. /tamihi(d)-/ ‘comfort’, spelt 〈tá-mi-hi-sá〉 in its two KARATEPE 1 Hu./Ho. §51 occurrences and thus for a long time been interpreted as ‘abundance’ or ‘non-mobile wealth’ (cf. e.g. [1850]Starke 1990a:386 n. 1397 and Hawkins 2000a:55) and more recently as ‘old age’ (see the discussion and references in Oreshko 2012b:176f., but also Sasseville 2021a:90f. for a critique). Partially following Morpurgo Davies & Hawkins 1987a:274f., Melchert 1989b:41 n. 28 regards HLuw. /tamihid-/ as root cognate with Hittite tammetar ‘abundance’, albeit with a different stem formation.

Alternatively /tamm(i)-/ ‘adult (?)’, could be related to the verb /ta-⁽ⁱ⁾/ ‘to stand’, representing a /-mma/i/-/ participle ‘stood, standing; old’ (Melchert pers. comm.).

As a third option, the word may be based on a loan from Akkadian: ṭāmu ‘wise, knowning one’ (see CAD Ṭ:46), which is in HLuw. subjected to i-mutation. None of the three hypotheses can be considered more likely than another, and the matter will remain undecided until new evidence surfaces.

[AH.B.]

Perhaps, but by no means assuredly, the word is based on a loan from Akkadian: ṭāmu ‘wise, knowning one’ (see CAD Ṭ:46).

[AH.B.]