*papa-/baba-
‘father’
- Language
- Proto-Anatolian
- Grammar
- subst
- ID
- 787
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Palaic
pāpa-
‘father’1.1.1Transmission
This lexeme is found in a festival text with Palaic incantations.
[D.S.]
1.1.2Forms
| nom. sg. | pa-a-pa-aš | KUB 35.163 ii 22’ | (CTH 753, NS) |
| pa-a-pa-aš | KBo 13.265 4’ | (CTH 753, NS) |
For a dubious instance of this lexeme in a Hittite list of deities, see Carruba 1972a:20.
[D.S.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
The lenition in the second labial stop permits the phonological interpretation /baba/ for Pal. pāpa-.
[D.S.]
1.1.4Meaning
The occurrence of anna- and pāpa- together as well as comparing them with the Hittite words for ‘mother’ and ‘father’, i.e. anna- and atta-, led to a quick elucidation of the respective Palaic words (Kammenhuber 1955b:366, Kammenhuber 1959a:21f., Carruba 1970a:66). Although Pal. pāpa- differs from Hittite atta-, both are typical babble words for ‘father’, frequently found across the languages of the world.
[D.S.]
1.1.5Derivatives
2. Reconstruction
2.1Reconstruction ‘father’
The Palaic lexeme pāpa- has been connected with the first member of the compound in Hittite pa-ap-pa-né-eg-né-eš ‘brother of the same father’ (KUB 29.1 iii 49, NS) (HEG P:421f.). For Palaic pāpa- /baba/, Melchert 1994a:203 reconstructs the Proto-Anatolian pre-form *bába with *b, which is supported by the single intervocalic p in pa-a-pa-aš. The Hittite cognate *pa-ap-pa- spelled with a geminate p reflects instead a pre-form *papa- with a voiceless labial stop. This divergence is not problematic, since they are babble words used by babies, and both the voiced and the voiceless variants are typologically common.
[D.S.]
3. Proto-Indo-European
3.1Semantic Reconstruction
Besides the formal term Core IE *ph2ter- ‘father’ there are several nursery words for ‘daddy’ attested in the IE languages. As in some languages the original nursery words PAnat. *atta ‘daddy’ and PAnat. *dada ‘father’ replaced PIE *ph2ter- as the standard word for ‘father’, also Pal. /baba/ attests the formal and not the informal meaning.Lat. pāpa ‘episcopus, (later) pope’ and its borrowed descendants (ModE pope etc.) became a Christian title.Due to the phonological mismatch (cf. below) between Pal. /baba/ ‘father’ (formal), on the one hand, and Hitt. papa° ‘father’ (formal?) and Gk. πάπ(π)α ‘daddy’ (informal), on the other hand, no common ancestor is reconstructed and thus no original meaning is given here. However, from the phonological shape of the words – reduplication, primitive phones [p]/[b] and [a] – it is clear that we are dealing with nursery words.Similar, but with a different meaning, are Lith. bóba, Latv. bãba, OCS(+) baba ‘old woman’. However, ModHG Papa (17th c.+) and ModE pap(p)a(h) (17th c.+) are loan words from (Old) French (cf. DWB, OED online s.vv.) and thus not comparable.
3.2Morphological Reconstruction
PIE *papa with voiceless plosives is reconstructable at least on the basis of Hittite (cf. the compound pappan(n)ikna- ‘paternal brother’) and Greek, where forms with and without geminate ‑ππ- are attested. Since “expressive germination” is typical of baby talk, *pappa is interpreted as a secondary form. The preform of the Hittite and Greek forms may then be reconstructed as PIE *papa with single internal *‑p- (cf. IEW:789, EIEC:195).As is argued for s.v. PAnat. *atta ‘daddy’ sub Morphological reconstruction, phonotactics (e.g., the avoidance of geminates in PIE) play a minor role in nursery words, which would also allow a PIE form *pappa.However, unlike in the case of PAnat. *atta ‘daddy’, no PIE reconstruction is provided here, because a continuation of putative *papa ‘daddy’ is securely attested in only two languages (Hitt., Gk.). Furthermore, the eDiAna main entry Pal. /baba/ ‘father’ has no obvious cognates in the other IE languages and may easily have been created einzelsprachlich as an inner-Palaic nursery word.
[A.O.]