pddẽnehm̃me/i-

This lexeme is attested in a grave inscription from Limyra, on the Letoon trilingual inscription dated to 337 BCE and on a pithos dated to ca. 500 BCE (see Dündar & Réveilhac 2021a:165f.).

[D.S.]

nom. sg.	pddẽnehm͂mi	TL 106.1 (Limyra)
acc. pl.	pddẽnehm͂mis	N 320.3-4 (Xanthos)
nom. or dat. sg. (?)	[pd]ḍẽnehm̃mi	graffito on a pithos from Patara*

*For the recent publication of this graffito, see Dündar & Réveilhac 2021a. Although a nominative singular is posited by the authors (on page 169), a dative singular, i.e. as the recipient of the object, is equally possible.

[D.S.]

According to the tracing of TL 106 made by Christiansen 2020a:251, there is no word divider between pddẽneh and m̃mi (against Kalinka 1901a:76, already considered erroneous by Gusmani in 1975 apud Neumann 2007a:262, following the discovery of N 320, as well as by Meriggi 1978c:256).

[D.S.]

Thanks to the discovery of the trilingual inscription in which pddẽnehm̃mis is rendered with Greek ἄρχοντας ‘rulers, commanders’, it could be established that pddẽnehm̃me/i- is a title of high importance translatable in various ways, see e.g. Laroche 1979c:60 “commissaires”, Neumann 2007a:262 “Vorgesetzter”, Schürr 2012a:125 und Gehrisch 2018a:146 “Vorsitzender”, Christiansen 2020a:250f. “head, chairman”, Dündar & Réveilhac 2021a:170 “governor, ruler, commissioner” (less important than the xñtawate/i- c. ‘king’; cf. also Carruba 1993c:18). In TL 106, it is modified by miñtehi ‘of the Mindis’, which implies that the Mindis-group had a pddẽnehm̃mi, i.e. a “chief”, of their own (Bryce 1986a:135).

[D.S.]

The noun pddẽnehm̃me/i- is a mutated stem. For its analysis as a compound, see under Origin.

[D.S.]

Laroche 1979c:61 analyzed pddẽnehm̃me/i- as a substantivized participle of a verb *pddẽneha-, which he compared on the one hand to Hitt. pēdaššaḫḫ-⁽ⁱ⁾ ‘to (socially) place’, but on the other to a virtual imperfective formation comparable to Luwian -šša-⁽ⁱ⁾ built on a base related to Hitt. piyetta- ‘allocation’. However, none of these hypotheses are tenable. Hajnal 1995a:37 n. 41 suggests a compound made of pddẽne and a participle of ha-^(di) ‘to release, allow’ (followed by DLL:21f.), which is much more plausible; likewise Neumann 2007a:262 pddẽne (dat. pl.) “auf die Plätze” + hm̃mi “gesetzt”. For syncope of the root vowel in a participle following its substantivization, see Lyc. A hlm̃me/i- and cf. Gehrisch 2018a:192f.

A different approach has been suggested by Melchert (apud Schürr 2012a:125 and Melchert 2018b), who analyzes pddẽnehm̃me/i- as pddẽ + ehm̃me/i-, viewing the second member as a participial form of a reconstructed root verb *eh- ‘to sit’ with the -n- in-between serving as a hiatus filler (followed by Dündar & Réveilhac 2021a:169). Apart from the fact that he brings no parallel whatsoever for the existence of a hiatus filler -n- in LycianSee instead the phenomenon of elision as in ñ]temlẽ (e)si (not **ñ]temlẽn esi!!) in TL 44b.50., the assumption of a root verb *eh- ‘to sit’ in Lycian is phonologically unlikely, since, like for the verb es-^(ti) ‘to be’, the -s- of the root should have been retained, i.e. *es- (or better Lyc. A *is- ‘to sit’)Even the vowel of the root in *eh- is not probable due to the generalization of the strong stem *is- in root verbs going back to acrostatic Narten presents., due to the development of -sC-clusters in certain endings of the paradigm. Therefore, Melchert’s hypothesis is hereby rejected, and the analysis of Hajnal and Neumann described above is kept.

[D.S.]

For the corresponding lemma heads, see Lyc. pddẽ(n)- and Lyc. ha-^(di).