wattant(i)-

The sole attestation of the lexeme comes from a fragment of a ritual, presumably a birth ritual (Starke 1985b:267).

[E.R.]

Checked against the photograph in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.

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See CLuw. wattant(i)- in Hittite transmission.

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One of the two instances of the lexeme occurs in Hittite transmission, i.e. in the ritual of Zuwi, which shows strong Luwian affinities.

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Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – It is unclear whether the initial wedge is meant to be a gloss wedge before the wa-sign, which would be exceptional in a MS tablet, or a spelling with initial u-wa-, which, in contrast to ú-wa-, is just as rare (cf. CLL:267, HW 2nd ed. Ḫ:558 and HEG U-Z:424 mentioning both options).

[E.R.]

While the same word attested in Luwian context is mentioned only in a fragmented passage together with a river, the Luwianism in the Zuwi ritual occurs in the description of a ^NA4ḫēkur ‘rock (sanctuary)’: [nu^? Z]I-ŠU uwattantiš (or wattantiš?) ^NA4ḫekur ēššari=ššit wīlkuw[an “His spirit is a w. rock (sanctuary), his body is gras[s.” From a morphological viewpoint, both wattant(i)- ‘having water’ and wattant(i)- ‘having rocks/mountains’ are plausible options (cf. Gérard 2006a:29: ‘élevé, massif’). Before Gérard 2006a’s recognition of the Luwian lexeme watt(i)- ‘mountain’, most scholars either adhered to the former (CLL:267, Kimball 1999a:262, HW 2nd ed. Ḫ:558 and 560, HEG U-Z:424) or were undecided (DLL:110, Starke 1990a:525 n. 1940, Ünal 2007a:796). Even Gérard 2006a:249 considered both translations, and then favored ‘having water’ (from ‘having a spring, having an up bubbling of water’), trying to connect it etymologically with watt(i)- ‘mountain’ via a meaning ‘élevé’.

Contextually, both meanings are possible, since adjectives preponed with regard to their head nouns (uwattantiš ^NA4ḫekur) describe inherent characteristics of their head nouns or distinctive features relevant for their identification. The semantics of ‘having rocks/mountains’ would be inherent to a rock (sanctuary), while ‘having water’ would be distinctive.

Therefore, the semantic option of ‘having rocks/mountains’ is accepted solely on account of the fact that watt(i)-, the assumed base of wattant(i)-, is directly attested in Luwian, while the word for ‘water’ is found in Luwian only in derivatives of the r- and n-stems. Thus, it is a matter of economy.

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The present lemma is generally assigned to the class of denominative adjectives in -ant(i)- (see the references listed under Meaning).

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Evidence for the Luwian origin of the lexeme comes from the root watt- known from Luwian, the i-mutated nom. sg. c., and the occurrence of homonymous wattant(i)- in Cuneiform Luwian context (cf. again the references under Meaning, in which the Luwian origin is taken for granted).

[E.R.]

For the lemma head see CLuw. watt(i)-.