/nimuwiyai(ya)-/, INFANS-mu-wa/i-ia-

This lexeme is attested five times in the HLuw. corpus. Its attestations can be found in Karkamiš and Malatya as well as Commagene, and the relevant inscriptions date to between the 11^th and the 8^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

nom./acc. sg. n.	/nimuwiyaiyan=za/	INFANS-mu-wa/i-ia?-ia-za	KARKAMIŠ A5a, 1§1 (Karkamiš)
		INFANS.NI-ia-za	BOYBEYPINARI 2, IVB2§17c (Commagene)
		INFANS.NI-za	ANCOZ 7, D§13 (Commagene)
nom./acc.  pl. n.	/nimuwiyaiya/	INFANS-mu-wa/i-i-ia-ia	MALATYA 3 (Malatya)
		INFANS-mu-wa/i-ia-ia	MALATYA 1 (Malatya)

Both the use of the logogram INFANS as well as the partially explicit spelling serve to connect this lexeme to the noun /nimuwizza-/ ‘son’ and its semantic field. The present lexeme is an adjective and occurs exclusively in contexts where it is part of a string of modifiers attached to a noun. Such modifier strings commonly feature possessive structures with proper nouns derived into adjectives, whereas personal names may retain the older genitive, especially when the head noun belongs to a small group of highly frequent nouns (Bauer 2014a:176-186). In all attestations except Malatya, the relevant phrase is part of the protases of curse formulae, listing the types of damage to the inscription or stele that the installation is to be protected from by the formula.

Older semantic interpretations such as Melchert’s (Melchert 1990a:204) suggestion “‘lack of virility’ (or the like)” can now be abandoned.

[AH.B.]

Representing a form in /-i(ya)-/ (Melchert 1990a:203f.), this adjective is relational in meaning and belongs to the ever-expanding group of genitival adjectives found in both varieties of Luwian. The derivational basis is clearly not the well-known noun /nimuwizza-/ ‘son’; rather, /nimuwiyai(ya)-/ ‘filial, son’s’ and /nimuwizza-/ may both derive from a common compounded base such as */nimuwa-/, which is unattested in Luwian.

[AH.B.]

For the lemma head, see HLuw. /muwa-⁽ⁱ⁾/.