*mou̯h₁-o- (or -eh₂-)

Once attested as a noun, the existence of this lexeme in the HLuw. corpus is tentative, because the inscription it occurs in is partly fragemented and otherwise considerably abraded bordering on illegibility, and hence exceptionally difficult to understand. Dating to the 13^th century BCE, the monument block originates form Köylütolu near Yalburt in western Anatolia. The lemma for the noun /muwa-/ is therefore tentative.

Aside from that, however, the lexeme is attested 13 times in the form of a genitival adjective, mostly in bare logographic form in early inscriptions from Malatya dating to the 11^th or 10^th century BCE. Later attestations from the 9^th and 8^th century BCE can be found in Karkamiš and Tabal and also feature syllabic signs.

[AH.B.]

Alternatively, it may be that 〈(ARMA^?)mu-wa/i-ti〉 from KÖYLÜTOLU YAYLA, §5 is a dat./loc. sg. of the neuter noun /muwatta-/ ‘conquest’, or a 3sg. pres. act. of a verb /muwa-^(ti)/, cf. the discussion at HLuw. /muwa-⁽ⁱ⁾/ ‘to conquer; control’. In either case, the noun /muwa-/ would only be attested by way of its genitival adjective forms from Karkamiš, Malatya, and Tabal.

Regarding the attribution of the many purely logographically spelt attestations to the present lexeme, cf. the discussions below.

[AH.B.]

Notoriously difficult to read, the inscription KÖYLÜTOLU YAYLA may be the only one to contain the present lexeme as a noun; Schürr 2017a: 32 reads what may be clause §5 as 〈*a-wa/i-ti (ARMA)mu-wa/i-ti VIR₂.ARMA zi/a-wa/i-zi/a *283-zi/a *283-mi-tu〉, and interprets /muwadi/ as an abl./instr. and the clause final verb as an imperative, without going so far as to provide a full translation. On the basis of such thin textual evidence, the meaning of this lexeme cannot be sensibly assessed there. Besides, the assignment of the clause boundaries may be different, with the form representing a verb, although that seems altogether less likely at present.

However, the semantic evidence from other members of the word family provides a good basis for suggestions for the noun, e.g. /muwattalla/i-/ ‘mighty’ etc., the PN /Muwa-/ and related PNs, as well as cognates in CLuw. In the case of Hittite, the denotation suggested in CHD L-N:314-316 is quite cautious, viz. ‘(an awe-inspiring quality)’,Note the arguments there against the often-assigned additional meaning ‘semen, seed’. whereas Melchert (CLL:151) proposes a more precise ‘might, power’ for the CLuw. evidence in Hittite transmission.

Regarding the genitival adjective /muwassa/i-/, the attestation in KULULU 2, §3 is the only one to occur within a larger preserved context: wa/i-ta á-mi-ia-za-i (“LECTUS”)i-sà-na-za “EDERE”-tà-mi-i-sa u-wa/i-mi-i-sá *462-ti-i (DEUS)sà-ta-ti-i ARHA (“MORI”)wa/i+ra/i-ha-a, approx. /wa=tta ammiyanz isananz adammis uwammis muwassidi Santadi ahha walahha/, meaning ‘I died on my couches eating (and) drinking by/with (the god) powerful Santa’ (cf. Hawkins 2000a:488).

In all other cases, the context has either been lost (KARKAMIŠ A27c) or consists of merely a personal name or two as in Malatya. In the inscriptions from Malatya, the lexeme occurs in epigraphs that serve to identify the person depicted on the orthostats. The epigraphs are mostly designed in the fashion of cartouches, in which the sign *462 is always paired with the logogram REX and sometimes occurs with the name of the king not just once but twice, i.e. on either side of it, e.g. in MALATYA N1: *462 REX PUGNUS-mi-li REX *462, literally ‘powerful king PUGNUS-mili king powerful’ (Mora 2013a:272-274). Due to the mainly logographic spelling and omission of case endings in the epigraphs, it is possible that *462 and REX actually form a compound, perhaps of two nouns, instead of a phrase consisting of an adjective and a noun.

[AH.B.]

The nominal stem class of the noun /muwa-/ is unclear. With one tentative attestation in an oblique case, the grammatical gender of the word remains unclear.

The genitival adjective /muwassa/i-/ is formed with the frequently attested suffix /-assa/i-/, which builds possessive adjectives from nouns and is highly productive in Luwian (see e.g. Melchert 2003b:188). It can therefore be assumed that a noun /muwa-/ ‘power, might’ existed in HLuw., even if there is only one tentatively identified attestation for it, in addition to the numerous forms of the PN /Muwa-/ and related compounds. Throughout the HLuw. corpus, /-assa/i-/ formations consistently show i-mutation (Melchert 2003b:187f.), and the nom. sg. c. form of /muwassa/i-/ found in Karkamiš is a case in point.

[AH.B.]

1. /muwida-/

2. /muwatta-/

3. /muwattalla/i-/

All complete attestations of the lexeme are found in NS oracle texts.

[E.R.]

The assignment of mu-u-wa-aš at KUB 49.74, 24’ as dat./loc. pl. is based on its uncertain, but very likely syntactic dependency on šer (for the passage, see under Meaning).

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – On the Sumerographic spelling a.a-, see HW:145 and CHD L-N:314-316 with references. – On the reading mu-n=a and mu-an-na instead of alleged mu-na and mu-an-na, see CHD L-N:314-316.

[E.R.]

While CHD L-N:314-316 (followed in Ünal 2007a:463, HEG L-N:238-243, EDHIL:589) offers only a generic meaning, viz. “1. an awe-inspiring quality, 2. name of a token (in lot oracles)”, Starke 1989a:667-669 narrows the translation down to ‘courage, dauntlessness, feistiness’. This is based on the opposition between naḫšaratt- ‘fear’ and mūwa- (a.a-a-) in KUB 5.1 iii 56: (If on this campaign, wherever I turn, you will assist me,) na-aḫ-šar-ra-ta-an-mu-kán ti-ia-ši ḫar-ka₄-nu-mi-an ar-ḫa-za a.a-an ú-da-aḫ-ḫi sig₅-ru “and step on/against my fear, so that I will destroy it, (and if) I will bring home for myself/acquire the mūwa-, let (the oracle) be favorable” (CHD L-N:314 and Starke 1989a:668). Melchert (CLL:151) takes an intermediary position with ‘might, power’.Outdated is the translation ‘sperm, seminal fluid’ drawn from alleged equations in lexical lists and going back to Friedrich, Laroche and Güterbock (still followed in HHw:108 and HED M:196f.); cf. CHD L-N:315f. for references and a discussion of these suggestions from the first decades of Hittitology. The semantic range of the combined solutions by Starke and Melchert accords well with the feature of a country (mu-u-wa-aš ša kur ^URUḪat-ti še-er ‘on account of the powers of the land of Ḫatti’, KUB 49.74, 24’), the use as a positive token in lot oracles, and the frequent occurrence in personal names (including female names, see HEG L-N:240-242).

[E.R.]

In Hittite transmission, mūwa- is an a-stem, although the gender is not clear. For its stem class in Luwian, there is no inflectional form that would permit a decision between the non-mutating a-stems and those with i-mutation, if it is common gender. However, the fact that the derivative mutti(ya)- shows syncope of putative -uwa- to -u- renders an a-stem unlikely, since one would expect -uwa- to resist syncope if its -a- originated from *-eh₂- (parallel to -iya- < *-ii̯eh₂-). Therefore, a Cuneiform Luwian common gender a-stem *mūwa- is considered here to be unlikely.

[E.R.]

I. For personal names with mūwa- as a compound member, see Laroche 1966a:322-324, HEG L-N:240-242, Neumann 2007a:224, Zehnder 2010a:85-87, 223-225.

1. ^fa.a (Zehnder 2010a:223-225, also with references for toponyms)
2. ^fMūwatti (Zehnder 2010a:223-225, also with references for toponyms)

Although there are no phonological or graphic indications for the Luwian origin of mūwa-Weiss’ (Weiss 1996a:206) phonological argument that -uwV- would have been dissimilated to -umV- does not help, since this sound change does not apply to recent glides (e.g. after loss of intervocalic *-h_1/3-)., such is now generally assumed on account of the firm entrenchment of the word family in Luwian (as opposed to Hittite) and the consistently Luwian suffixes present in the derivatives (Laroche 1966a:324, Starke 1989a:667f., implicit Rieken 2001a:374 n. 30, EDHIL:589, Yakubovich 2010d:211 n. 7, Zehnder 2010a:85-87, 223-225).

[E.R.]

This lexeme is a hapax occurring in TL 44, the pillar of Xanthos, dated stylistically to around 400 BCE and contextually to shortly after the ascension of the Persian emperor Artaxerxes II in 405-404 BCE (Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:19f.).

[O.B.]

Grammatical analysis with Melchert (DLL:122).

[O.B.]

Lyc. B muwa is usually translated as ‘strength (vel sim.)’ (DLL:122, Neumann 2007a:229, Sasseville 2015a:289), informed by the comparison to the well know Luwian word formation element /muwa-/ ‘strength (vel sim.)’. However, the passage in which the form appears is fragmentary and difficult to parse (see Stem).

[O.B.]

The type of stem assigned to this lexeme is contingent on which grammatical analysis is preferred for the hapax form muwa. While the passage is not easily parsed, an accusative reading seems most promising: the predicate is asx[xa] ‘I made (repeatedly)’ (from Lyc. B as- ‘to make (imperf.)’) and the adjective a[t]rala ‘own’ (from Lyc. B atrele/i- ‘own, personal (?)’) modifies muwa, leading to a tentative translation ‘I made my own strength’. The form is thus most likely either a common gender a-stem in the nom./acc. coll. or a neuter stem in nom./acc. pl.

[O.B.]

1. muwa-^(ti)

This noun is found also in personal names preserved on funerary steles datable to the 2^nd or 3^rd century CE.

[D.S.]

The Pisidian personal name Μουα was etymologically connected with the Luwian appellative mūwa- ‘might’ by Brixhe, Drew-Bear & Kaya 1987a:159 and has been generally accepted (see Lebrun 2012b:360, Melchert 2013c:34, Simon 2017a:39).

[D.S.]

1. qaλm(λ)u-