paraštarr(i)-

The sole attestation of the lexeme is found in the Festival for Protective Deities.

[E.R.]

gen. adj. nom. sg. c.

pa-ra-aš-tar-ra-aš-ši-iš

KUB 2.1 ii 18

(CTH 682, NS)

The nom. sg. form is a mistake, used instead of the dat./loc. sg. *paraštarrašši, which would agree with the head noun ^Dkal-i in the dat./loc. sg. Starke 1990a369 n. 1326 hypothesizes that the scribe was not able to transfer a list of nominatives into dat./loc. forms.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – CHD P:141 (with references) discusses an alleged erroneous space between paraš and tarraššiš, but the photograph does not show a space; the handcopy is imprecise in that respect.

[E.R.]

The word is used in an epithet of the Tutelary Deity (^Dkal), following another epithet, the “kurraštarr(i)- related to the Labarna.” No meaning has been assigned so far (HW:332, DLL:78, Kronasser 1966a:226, McMahon 1991a:107, CHD P:141, HHw:121, HEG P:446, Ünal 2007a:514). Only Starke 1990a:398 considered and immediately rejected a connection with CLuw. parrai(ya)- ‘high’, and Melchert (CLL:167, DCL:176) tentatively thought of a connection with the base of CLuw. paratt(a)- ‘impurity’. Neither idea has much to recommend itself. However, Melchert’s suggestion that the parallel derivative kurraštarr(i)-represents a derivative of kuwar-/kur- may provide a first step towards the solution of the problem. Although Melchert himself implausibly translates it as ‘schism’ (or similar), an understanding of the phrase “for the Tutelary Deity of the cutting/separation related to the Labarna” is offered by the contexts of kuwar-/kur-^(ti) in the purification rituals, where the action denotes the separation of the miasma from the ritual patron. Likewise, the CLuw. verb para-^(ti) ‘to carry (off)’ and its reduplicated variant papra-⁽ⁱ⁾ ‘id.’ express the same notion. In addition to being informed by etymological considerations, the two parallel semantic interpretations support each other.

[E.R.]

Modifying the analysis by Kronasser 1966a:226, CHD P:141, and Starke 1990a:398, who posited an abstract suffix -štar-, Melchert (CLL:167, DCL:176) assumes -št(ar)r(i)- as the derivational formant for deverbal abstract nouns including kurraštarr(i)- and paraštarr(i)-.Outdated are Tischler’s (HEG P:446) ideas that were still based on the erroneous reading with the space between -aš- and -tar-.

[E.R.]

On account of the suffix and the gloss wedge marking, paraštarr(i)- is generally assumed to originate in Luwian (DLL:78, Starke 1990a:398, CLL:167, CHD P:141, HHw:121, HEG P:446, Ünal 2007a:514, DCL:176).

[E.R.]