/usi-/
‘to supply (?)’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- verb
- ID
- 2877
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/usi-/, u-si-
‘to supply (?)’1.1.1Transmission
This lexeme occurs twice in the HLuw. corpus. Its attestations stem from a single letter, which was found as part of a stash in Assur, but probably came there from elsewhere. The text is dated to the late 8th century BCE.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
| 2sg. pres. act. | /usittis/ | u-si-ti-sa | ASSUR letter c, §6 |
| u-si-ti-sà | ASSUR letter c, §7 |
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
The verb is attested twice within the same letter found in Assur. It is not clear if the lexeme has any cognates in the other Anatolian languages.There is, in all likelihood, no cognate link to CLuw. uša- ‘to lead (here)’ (earlier often cited as ušā(i)-, cf. e.g. CLL:245). Thus, alternative, though less likely, interpretations for the attested forms are different variations of /us(s)ittis/, cf. the discussion of the stem below as well as CLuw. ušiyam[.
The switch from 〈sa〉 (sign *415) to 〈sà〉 (*104) between the forms likely has no phonological implications, because the distinctive use of the two signs had at that point been largely abandoned and they could once more be used interchangeably, cf. Rieken 2010b:658.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
The forms of this verb were tentatively considered to belong to the verb /usa-/ ‘to bring, lead (here)’, but this view has since been rendered unlikely because of incompatible stem formations; for details, see the discussion of the stem below. Within the context of attestation in ASSUR letter c, the relevant clauses occur directly after the introductory greeting formula with enquiries after the health and well-being of the addressee, perhaps even as a direct question rather than good wishes, cf. Waal 2016a:3. The clauses §§6-7 appear to contain a statement in two parts: á-pi-ha-wa/i-mu-ta NEG2-a kwa/i-ha-na u-si-ti-sa wa/i-mu-ta *187-tu-wa/i-i-za kwa/i-za u-si-ti-sà, approx. /appi=ha=wa=mu=tta na kwihhan usittis wa=mu=tta hartuwin=za kwanza usittis/, translating as ‘You supply? us (with) nothing, while you supply? us (with) kin’, followed by a string of commands to send along (then using the verb /harwanni-(i)/ ‘to dispatch’) various items or commodities, a number of which are so far untranslated (see e.g. /hasp(i)-/ and /mila-/). Even without the meaning of /usi-/ supported by etymological evidence, the contextual analysis strongly suggests that the verb denotes the provision of something, and ‘to supply’ is chosen here for its basic semantics devoid of either negative or positive connotations.
[AH.B.] [I.Y.]
1.1.5Stem
The forms of /usi-/ look rather similar to the verb /usa-/ ‘to lead (here)’, and while Meriggi initially regarded them as two different verbs (HHG:140), other scholars discussed uniting the forms into one paradigm, cf. e.g. Hawkins 1975a:140 and Morpurgo Davies 1980b:107 n. 26. However, newer findings about the verbal stem classes (see the sets of endings in Sasseville 2021a) support Meriggi’s initial separation, because the forms attested for the present verb cannot be fitted into the paradigm of /usa-/ ‘to lead (here)’, regardless of whether the latter verb belongs to the stems in /-a-(ti)/ or those in /-a-(i)/.
The lexeme under discussion fits either into the class of verbs in /-i-(ti)/ or into the class in /-(a)i-(di)/ with lenited endings and with only /-i-/ in the singular, but /-ai-/ in the plural. However, since no plural forms have yet been found attested, the choice between these two options cannot be made at this time.
The form of the ending as attested in ASSUR letter c, §§6-7, i.e. /-ttis/, is one of the less common allomorphs besides /-tti/ and /-ssi/, but well enough represented for there to be little doubt over its identification as a 2.sg. pres. act., see Yakubovich 2015b:6.5. It probably constitutes a recharacterised secondary ending originally from the ḫi-conjugation, cf. Sasseville 2021a:258 incl. n. 4.
[AH.B.]