itlehe/i-
‘members of the jury (?)’
- Language
- Lycian A
- Grammar
- subst, c.
- ID
- 3564
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Lycian A
itlehe/i-
‘members of the jury (?)’1.1.1Transmission
This noun is attested in curse formulas of grave inscriptions from East Lycia.
[D.S.]
1.1.2Forms
For the nominative plural interpretation confirmed by the verbs, see Heubeck 1981a:158 and Heubeck 1989a:55; contra Meriggi 1978c:257 “nom. sg.”.
[D.S.]
1.1.3Meaning
The itlehi represent a group of beings acting as punishing agents in curse formulas, sometimes alongside other gods. They are typically modified by the adjectives trm̃mili ‘Lycian’ and huwedri ‘all, whole’. Laroche 1967a:56 points out that, even if it is coordinated with divine agents such mãhãi ‘gods’, a meaning as an administrative term referring to people should be maintained as well, although he excludes the earlier equations with Greek ταμίας or φίσκος (thus also Heubeck 1959a:34, Meriggi 1978c:257 “confederation”, Heubeck 1989a:55 “a union of itle”, Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:66 “members of the federal” and Melchert in DLL:30 (both following Carruba 1996a) “foederatus, belonging to a league”, followed by Gehrisch 2018a:113 “federation”; cf. Schürr 2008b:166 n. 18 and Oreshko 2019a:107 n. 44 who, distancing themselves from an administrative term, come back to the old interpretation “heroes”; left untranslated by Christiansen 2020a:230). For a list of outdated hypotheses, see Neumann 2007a:156.
Considering the legal contexts the word occurs in and since it was a court that decided on the fate of the offenders, a more accurate translation for itlehe/i- would be ‘(all Lycian) members of the jury’. Nonetheless, more evidence would be welcome.
[D.S.]
1.1.4Stem
The noun itlehe/i- represents a substantivized genitival adjective built on an unattested noun *itle/i- (←*itele/i- with syncope), itself derived from the attested noun ite(/i)-. No etymological relationship with atla- can be phonologically maintained (i.e. a and i cannot be reconciled), contra Meriggi 1978c:257 and Oreshko 2019a:107 n. 44.
[D.S.]
For the lemma head see Lyc. A ite-(ti).