prŋida

Hapax on a votive object from Egypt of unknown provenance, dated to the first Persian rule of Egypt, i.e. last quarter of the 6^th c. – 5^th c. (O. Masson 1976a:83).

[Zs.S.]

dat. sg.

prŋidas

E.xx 7

The attestation follows Adiego 2007a:402, checked against the photograph in O. Masson 1976a:Pl. I. For more details on its grammatical definition see under Meaning.

[Zs.S.]

Prŋidas only appears in the phrase ntros prŋidas, the beneficiary of the votive inscription E.xx 7. The reader is immediately reminded to the Carian form of Apollo, who appears as ntro in C.xx 1. But since ntro is undoubtedly a dative form (as the recipient of that votive inscription, see, e.g., Adiego 2007a:282, 317), ntros can only be a derivative of it, and not the s-dative (contra Schürr 1998a:158 and Melchert 2002b:309 [who has later retracted this analysis, see below], who assumed an -o-derivative in s-dative). Schürr 1998a:158 indeed suggested that ntros would mean ‘priest’ and prŋidas would refer to the famous priestly family of the Branchidai of Didyma, which would be a perfect semantical and formal match (followed by Melchert 2002b:308, Kloekhorst 2008a:139, and Meier-Brügger 2009a:2f.; Simon 2020d:401 left the issue open).

Although Adiego 2007a:286, 307 was dissatisfied with the idea that the beneficiary is thus a priest and not the Branchid Apollo (cf. the elaboration in Adiego 2019a:35–38, prŋidas would thus be an epithet, followed by Herda & Sauter 2009a:98f. and Oreshko 2013c:80), this is, however, completely normal, and none of the followers of this idea could provide a morphological alternative how to explain ntros from the name of the divinity (Adiego’s repeatedly asserted “possessive” s-ending does not exist, cf. also Melchert 2010f:183, not to mention that the benefactor is also mentioned in E.xx 7, which rather implies a dative than a genitive for the recipient, admitted by Adiego 2019a:38, too).

What remains is the grammatical definition. Ntros can be derived from ntro by the genitival adjective -s- providing a semantically and morphologically fitting solution (‘of Ntro’, see Melchert 2002b:308, Melchert 2010f:183; this was ignored by Adiego 2019a:35, who falsely claims that the followers of the s-dative solution must analyze ntro as a nominative) and then ntros can be a dat. sg. (with the zero ending) what the votive inscription requires. Accordingly, prŋidas must also be in dative and cannot be the epithet of the god, but only its priest(s), the Branchidai, exactly as Schürr recognised. The question is how many priests. The ending of the dat. pl. is not known yet in Carian (see most recently Simon 2021b:54f.), so it cannot be excluded, theoretically. But a singular interpretation with the s-dative (as it is generally assumed) is equally possible. Since ntros is congruent, in case of a dat. pl. we would expect †ntross and thus, a singular interpretation is more probable.

[Zs.S.]

Adiego 2019a:37f. and Oreshko take the term prŋidas of Luwic origin and provide Luwic etymologies (Adiego assumed an epithet “*pariyan-ahid-” ‘beyondness > future (noun) > oracle(’s answer)’ and thus ‘Apollo (that) of the oracle’, which does not fit morphologically and only ad hoc ideas were provided for the -a-; Oreshko assumed a toponym [on this possibility see the discussion in Adiego 2019a:35f.] as “*par(r)an- naḫ(ḫ)ida-” ‘the foremost-revered place’, which employs, however, a denominal (!) suffix and an unexplained -a-, and thus, not possible, or ‘the place before Nahid(iy)a [a toponym]’, which is formally possible). Nevertheless, the Greek term Branchidai cannot be a loan from Carian due to its initial voiced consonant, only the other way round (admitted by Adiego 2019a:37, too). The only way to maintain a genuine Carian origin is to claim that Branchidai had folk-etymologically been reanalyzed under the influence of βράγχος ‘(sore throat causing) hoarseness’, but this is hardly motivated. While the etymology of the Branchidai requires further investigations, there is currently no reason to assume a Carian origin.

[Zs.S.]