ala-

The only occurrences of this word are found in two song incipits of the Ištanuwa festival.

[E.R.]

nom./acc. coll.	a-la	KBo 4.11 rev. 40	(CTH 772, NS)
	a-[l]a	KBo 4.11 rev. 58	(CTH 772, NS)

In CLL:8 (followed in Goedegebuure 2010a:311), the present forms are assigned to the adjective āla/i- (translated here as ‘distant, remote’; see under Lemma).

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.

[E.R.]

At KBo 4.11 rev. 40, ala either functions as a syntactically independent particle or adverb (thus Yakubovich 2017d) before the following sentence in the imperative (like Englisch ‘go!, up!’ vel sim.), or it represents one part of the list šuwatra wašu ala “fullness, good(s), ala”, denoting a desirable offering to the addressed deity (differently Goedegebuure 2010a:311, who assumes a noun clause). The first solution does not offer a serious option for the occurrence at rev. 58 in the middle of a clause in the indicative, but a substantive would suit the context. The form would then serve as the last direct object of a different list of positively connotated items concerning the fecundity of nature: nawila ‘young animals’, mannun ‘fertile condition (vel sim.)’ and ala. In view of the two like contexts, it is suggested here that ala represents a sporadic phonetic variant of /ada/, with a development of lenited intervocalic /d/ > [ɾ], spelled 〈l〉 (for another potential case of the same phenomenon in the same manuscript, cf. /idi/ ‘he goes’, spelled 〈i-li〉, see under ī-^(di) with reference to Yakubovich 2017d). The interpretation finds support in the lexeme /ada/ known from Hieroglyphic Luwian. Building on the proposal presented above, the sentence could be translated as “They observe the damaged God of Sowing/Fertility with respect to young animals, fertility and food.” Obviously, it must be regarded as tentative.

[E.R.]

If the analysis suggested under Meaning is correct, the lexeme can be classified as a collective noun.

[E.R.]