urttuwa-

This lexeme is found in the inscription of the inscribed pillar of Xanthos, dated contextually to shortly after the ascension of Artaxerxes II in 405-404 BCE and stylistically to around 400 BCE (Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:19f.).

[D.S.]

acc. sg. c.	urttu	TL 44d.50 (Xanthos)
	urtu	TL 44d.12 (Xanthos)
acc. pl. c.	urtuwãz	TL 44d.24 (Xanthos)
	urtuz	TL 44d.63 (Xanthos)

The grammatical analysis of each form is supported by the nouns they modify (thus DLL:133). The accusative singular in -u comes from the contraction of *urttuwu and the inner-Lycian sound change of -ã > -u, i.e. *urttuwã. The vowel sound change and the contraction likewise occurred in acc. pl. urtuz < urtuwãz.

[D.S.]

The spelling of the cluster is often reduced from -rtt- to -rt-, although this has no linguistic value, but simply expresses carelessness on the part of stonemason.

[D.S.]

Since urttuwa- modifies mara- ‘law’ (line 24, 63) and mrsxxa- ‘deceit’ (line 12), Melchert (DLL:133) suggests the meaning ‘great (?)’, probably thinking of the root ur- ‘great’ (see also Melchert 2015c:161 n. 7). Schürr 2003b:124 translates ‘loyal’, which is a mere guess. The suggestion of Shevoroshkin 2011b:153 ‘tribute’ is also unsupported. Melchert’s translation is further supported by its agreement with an animal in pasbu urttu qelid[e]li ‘a big sheep of the pen (?)’ (lines 50-51), for which see Sasseville 2021a:453. Therefore, we adopt Melchert’s semantic assignment.

Differently, Schürr 2018b:84 suggests a personal name, which is neither contextually nor syntactically supported. However, he points out that the word might have been borrowed from Lycian A *hurttu-, a word found in personal names, e.g. hurttuwete/i-, with the regular loss of h- for the borrowing into Lycian B. If this is correct, the root would be expected to have been *sur- and could no longer be connected to ur- ‘great’. Nonetheless, this remains tentative, since the meaning cannot be verified for the personal names.

[D.S.]

The Lycian language transfers original u-stems to the class of a-stems, which is why urttuwa- can be traced back to an original adjectival u-stem *urttu-.

[D.S.]

For the lemma head see Lyc. B *ure/i-.