paštari-^(ti)

The lexeme is attested once in a Late New Script bird oracle text.

[E.R.]

3sg. pret. act.

pa-aš-ta-ri-it-t[a]

KUB 18.57 ii 67

(CTH 577, LNS)

Melchert (CLL:172 and DCL:s.v.) reads pa-aš-ta-ri-it-ti (3sg. pres. act.) ignoring the damaged sign. Due to the broken attestation, Melchert’s reading cannot be proven and, therefore, the traditional reading with -t[a] is kept here.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.

[E.R.]

The meaning is not completely clear, even though it is accepted that paštari- concerns the flight of birds. Tischler (HHw:127 and HEG L-P:526) hesitantly proposes ‘to fly away’, Puhvel (HED PA:193) assumes a translation ‘to (make) scatter, shoo away, spurn’, whereas Melchert (DCL:s.v.) argues for an intransitive meaning ‘to start (up)’ for etymological reasons, which is tentatively adopted here (see also Melchert apud Sasseville 2021a:469).No meaning is given in DLL:81, Ünal 1973a:38, Archi 1975a:168, CLL:172, van den Hout 1995a:261, Ünal 2007a:408, Sakuma 2009a:224 and CHD P:210.

[E.R.]

Puhvel (HED PA:193) traces the form back to a stem paštar(iya)- by postulating a compound built of a preverb pa- (Hitt. pē, pe-, pa-) and a root štar- derived with -i(ya)-. The analysis as a compound of pa- and štar- is accepted by Sasseville 2021a:468f. and Melchert (DCL:s.v.). Furthermore, Sasseville 2021a:469 classifies the stem more accurately as -i-^(ti), i.e. without the allomorph -iya- (followed by Melchert in DCL).

[E.R.]

1. paštarnuwa-⁽ⁱ⁾

The Luwian origin of paštari- can be seen as communis opinio (HED PA:193, HEG L-P:526, HHw:127). It is supported by the attestation with two gloss wedges indicating a foreign origin and by the Luwian ending -itta.

[E.R.]

*This lemma was written together with Marian Wehrstein.

For the lemma head see CLuw. *star-.