/labani-^(ti)/, la-pa-ni-

This lexeme is attested once on the fragment of a stele from Tabal. The text is dated to the early 8^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

1sg. pres. act.

/labaniwi/

la-pa-ni-wa/i

ANDAVAL, §4 (Tabal)

Traditionally, this verb has been translated as ‘to summer-pasture, provide summer pasture’ vel sim., cf. e.g. Hawkins & Morpurgo Davies 1986a:74 and Starke 1990a:172, 231, following the semantics suggested in CHD L:40f. However, a translation connecting it more closely to its etymology, i.e. ‘to provide a salt-lick’, works just as well and easily accommodates the dat./loc. pl. evident in /assuwanz/ ‘to the horses’. The relevant passage in ANDAVAL, §§3-4 reads: ˹a˺-wa/i (TERRA+LA+LA)wa/i-li-ri+i-tà-ti kwa/i ARHA (PES)u-sa-wa/i a-wa/i (EQUUS)á-zú-wa/i-za za-ti la-pa-ni-wa/i, i.e. /a=wa walilidadi kwi ahha usawi a=wa azzuwanz zadi lapaniwi/ ‘When I lead (them) from the territory, I will provide a salt-lick to the horses here’.

[AH.B.]

The single attested form of this verb gives very little indication of what stem class it belongs to and why it differs from its cognate /laba-/ ‘to provide a salt-lick^?’. However, with a gap of approx. 500 years between the attestations of the verbs /laba-/ and /labani-/, it is possible that younger /labani-/ represents a replacement of much earlier attested /laba-/. It would be newly formed on the basis of the noun /laban(a)-/ ‘salt-lick’, which is not attested in HLuw., but can be found as a Luwianism in Hittite contexts. This new derivation would fit well into the class of denominal /-ani-^(ti)/ stems, some of which are verbs in /-i-^(ti)/ derived from n-stems, see Sasseville 2021a:148f.

[AH.B.]

For the lemma head, see HLuw. /lapa-/.