wašša-

The lexeme is limited to identical contexts frequently repeated in the songs of the Ištanuwa ritual (only MS).

[E.R.]

voc. sg. (?)	wa-aš-ša	KUB 35.139 i 9’, i 13’, i 16’	(CTH 773, MS)
	wa-aš-⸢ša⸣	KBo 14.121 iii 2’	(CTH 773, MS?)
	[w]a-aš-ša	KBo 14.121 iii 6’	(CTH 773, MS?)
	w[a-aš-ša]	KBo 14.121 iii 7’	(CTH 773, MS?)
	wa-š[a]	KBo 14.121 ii 7’	(CTH 773, MS?)
	wa-aš-ša	KBo 14.121 ii 9’, ii 11’	(CTH 773, MS?)
	w[a-aš-ša]	KBo 14.121 ii 14’	(CTH 773, MS?)
unknown	wa-ša-a[n(-)	KUB 35.139 i 14’	(CTH 773, MS)

For the grammatical interpretation of the word, see under Meaning. Contra Starke 1985a:333, [wa-aš-š]a at KBo 14.121 iii 10’ does not exist, as it is broken off completely. Instead, the sign trace on the left edge represents the wedge used as a demarcation sign between wašša and subsequent lalluwyawa (cf. also ibid. iii 6’).

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.

[E.R.]

CLuw. wašša has remained without a morphological and semantic interpretation in DLL:108, CLL:262. All attestations occur after the relative clause ku-iš-ti-ia-ap-pí, probably referring to the subject of the clause that precedes it in most instances: lalluwyawa tapāla duwayai “he reveres the thunder clouds belonging to Lallupiya” (see under the respective lemmata). Carruba 1968a:15 n. 3 and Starke 1990a:606 analyze kuiš=ti=appi correctly with =appi corresponding to HLuw. /appi/ ‘back, again’ (hesitation is voiced in CLL:23). Under this assumption, wašša could function as the predicate of the relative clause, either as a verb or a predicate noun. If wašša should represent a verb, i.e. 3sg. pres. med. ‘he dresses himself’ (thus Carruba 1968a) or ‘he is dear’, it leads to the translations “he who puts on a dress” and “he who is dear again to thee(?)”. However, this would be the first attestation for a Hittite-like medio-passive form without -r in Luwian, which speaks against this solution. Alternatively, if wašša were a collective noun, the clause would translate as “he who again is a dress / (dining?) table to thee (?)”, which is semantically implausible.

Therefore, a third interpretation is suggested here: CLuw. wašša represents indeed a collective noun, but is cognate with Hitt. warša- c. ‘fog, dew, rain’ vel sim. The only additional assumption necessary is the assimilation of *-rs- > ss in Ištanuwa Luwian, which is unproblematic given the well-known idiosyncrasies of this dialect and the rarity of the sequence -rš- (only in taršuliya, which may well have arisen secondarily from *-r̥s-). This analysis yields a coherent interpretation: “He reveres the storm clouds belonging to Lallupiya, who is behind thee, rain.” According to this translation, wašša functions as an addressee in the vocative.

[E.R.]

The vocative wašša would be compatible with a common gender collective a-stem and a neuter a-stem wašš(a)-. The comparison with Hitt. warša- c. favors the former.

[E.R.]