/sarranta/, SUPER+ra/i-ta
‘above’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- adv
- ID
- 3844
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
/sarranta/, SUPER+ra/i-ta
‘above’1.1.1Transmission
While most of the eleven attestations of the present lexeme occur in the KARATEPE bilingual from Cilicia, dating to the learly 7th century BCE, the word can also be found in other places such as Tell Ahmar and Tabal with datings going back to the early 10th or late 9th century BCE, depending on the inscription.
[AH.B.]
1.1.2Forms
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
The phonological interpretation of the lexeme under discussion was first suggested by Oshiro 1988c:28, and it is reasonably certain despite the lack of fully syllabic spellings and the imprecisions inherent to the HLuw. writing system. Use of the logogram SUPER (sign *70) ties the word securely to the word family around /sarra/ ‘over’ (see e.g. Oshiro 1988c:28 and Yakubovich 2012a:323), and the derivational suffix /-anta/ is well-known from other adverbs and has cognates in CLuw. -anta as well as Hittite -anda, see Oshiro 1988c and cf. Hoffner & Melchert 2008a:290 for the Hittite forms; also see the discussion of the stem below.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
Because of its spelling, the word is doubtlessly a member of the family around /sarra/ ‘over’ and its general meaning is clear. Although it appears in the bilingual inscription KARATEPE 1, Bossert 1948a:170, 185f. at first only labelled it a postposition or preverb, but was subsequently able to provide a possible reading and meaning (Bossert 1953a:334). Like most adverbs in HLuw., /sarranta/ can also be used as a preverb, cf. e.g. EREǦLİ 2, §1 (Poetto 2002a:398). Oshiro 1988c:28f. showed that it encodes location rather than goal.
Oshiro 1995a:222f. discusses the use of /sarranta/ as a postposition, governing nouns in the dat./loc. and, just like the adverb, indicating location rather than goal, i.e. ‘above, upon’. He hypothesises that HLuw. /sarra/ and /sarranta/ form a semantic pair expressing goal vs. location like CLuw. šarra vs. šarri and Hittite šarā vs. šēr.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Stem
Oshiro 1988c:28f. (reiterated in Oshiro 1995a:222 incl. n. 22) proposes to analyse /sarranta/ as a derivation of /sarra/ with the suffix /-anta/ also seen in other HLuw. adverbs such as /apparanta/ ‘afterwards’ with cognates in Hittite pairs such as katta and kattanda. As regards the origin of the suffix /-anta/, Boroday & Yakubovich 2018a:6f. put forward the hypothesis that at least some Hittite adverbs in -anda constitute compounds with the adverb anda ‘in’ as their second member,Such may have been hinted at by Oshiro 1988c:28 already, but it does not become fully clear. and the same is certainly possible for Luwian. Either analysis remains possible until further evidence is found.
[AH.B.]