šarloki-^(d)

This lexeme occurs four times, in curse formulae of three different inscriptions, all of which we found in Sardis and are broadly datable to the 5^th or 4^th century BCE.

[I.Y.]

3sg. pres. act.	katšarlokid	LW 23.4, 10 (Sardis) LW 24.13 (Sardis)
	[katša]rlokid	LW 17.3 (Sardis)

There is no doubt that this verb refers to negative actions of gods with regard to perpetrators. Two types of translation dominated the preceding discussion. According to Gusmani 1964a:147, it means either ‘to curse’ or ‘to destroy’, while a different translation ‘to bring defeat, demotion’ is found in Melchert 2004b:143. The problem of the first translation is that it implies the transitive character of the verb in question, whereas the actual attestations of šarloki-^(d) are invariably combined with the dative case pronoun referring to the offender. The second translation handles this syntactic problem, but rests upon the implicit assumption that the meaning of the verb is entirely determined by its preverb kat-, while šarloki-^(d) functions as a sort of functional head.    

The starting point for the translation adopted here is the assumption that šarloki-^(d) ultimately represents a derivative of šerl(i)- ‘authority’. If one assumes that šerl(i)- refers to a person (see the respective lemma), then it could serve as a derivational base of the abstract noun *šarloka- (cf. Lyd. šaroka- ‘patronage’). This abstract noun, in turn, represents a derivational base of the present verb whose etymological meaning would then be ‘to exercise authority’. For example, LW 23.10 can be translated: “Let Qλdãns and Artemis be in charge over him”. The pragmatic force of the relevant curse formulae consists in the threat that the gods will personally deal with the perpetrator, as opposed to delegating this task to the humans.

[I.Y.]

For the verbal i-stems derived from abstract nouns in -oka- and having the property of leniting the verbal ending in 3sg. pres. see Melchert 1992a:47f. and Sasseville 2021a:241-247. The stem šarloki-^(d) can be combined with the prefix kat-.

[I.Y.]

For the lemma head see Lyd. šar-.

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