šēwa/i-
‘bitter, sour’
- Language
- Cuneiform Luwian
- Grammar
- adj
- ID
- 3068
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Cuneiform Luwian
šēwa/i-
‘bitter, sour’1.1.1Transmission
The ritual for a sick child offers the sole attestation of the lexeme.
[E.R.]
1.1.2Forms
| nom./acc. pl. n. | še-e-wa | KBo 13.260 iii 11’ | (CTH 766, NS) |
Uncertain is the adduction of šēwan (CHD Š:487f.).
[E.R.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.
[E.R.]
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
CLuw. šēwa/i- occurs next to its derivative šēḫuwai(ya)-, which preserves -ḫ- even before the labiovelar glide. For the frequent loss in this context as seen in šēwa/i-, cf. Melchert 1994a:258.
[E.R.]
1.1.4Meaning ‘cutting, pricking, bitter, sour, hot’
In a magical ritual trying to reconciliate mother and child, the collectives ḫatta ‘piercing, striking’ and šēwa appear in parallel actions: (9’)... ḫa-at-ta-in-zi (10’)ḫa-at-ta a-da-an-du (11’)ši-e-ḫu-wa-en-zi še-e-wa (12’)a-da-an-du “those related to piercing shall eat piercing, those related to šēwa shall eat šēwa” (KBo 13.260 iii 9’-12’; slightly differently Melchert apud Mouton & Yakubovich 2019a:217f.). In analogy with ḫatta, šēwa must be something unpleasant to eat (as a means to dispose of or to control it?), next to piercing perhaps something cutting or pricking. This suggestion would accord well with the idea that another derivative, viz. še(ḫ)uwāl denotes a sharp and/or pointed tool. However, most scholars assume the metaphoric transition to a taste, ‘bitter, sour, hot’ (Starke 1987a:250 n. 26, CLL:193, EDHIL:767, HED ŠE, ŠI, ŠU:108); cf. also the toponym TÚLšiwammalita- ‘(Fountain) Bitter-sweet’ (Lorenz & Rieken 2007a:477).
[E.R.]
1.1.5Stem
The nom./acc. form ending in -a represents a substantivized plural neuter of the unattested adjective šēwa/i- or perhaps an abstract noun (CLL:193).
[E.R.]
1.1.6Compounds
-
TÚLšiwammalita- (Lorenz & Rieken 2007a:477)
1.1.7Derivatives
2. Reconstruction
2.1Reconstruction ‘bitter, sour’
A thematic formation *sēh3u̯o- ‘bitter, sour’ can be reconstructed based solely on CLuw. šēwa/i- (also as the base of the instrument noun šeḫwāl- n. < *sēh3u̯ólo-)For the o-derivation from a u-stem and for the formation in *-lo-, see Nikolaev 2009a and Oettinger 2015b:260), but there are also traces of a stem in *-eh2-, i.e. *sēh3u̯eh2- + -i̯o- in CLuw. šēḫwai(ya)- ‘related to that which is sour, bitter’. For the reconstruction with *h3 instead of *h2, see under PAnat. *sḗh3-u̯r̥/*sh3-un-é-.
For the Indo-European material, cf. Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1995a I:717, Lefeuvre 2007a, Nikolaev 2009a and Oettinger 2015b:259f.
[D.S.]