qebeli(je)-

This word is found in a grave inscription from Limyra.

[D.S.]

nom./acc. pl. n.

qebelija

TL 102.3 (Limyra)

The syntactic role of qebelija is highly debated. Neumann 2012a:400 analyzed qebelija as a divine name inflected in the dative singular. This interpretation must be refuted on grammatical ground, since the dative singular of a stem in -ija- is -i; cf. malija- (dat. mali). Moreover, contra Lebrun 1987b:243, the equation with the Hittite divine name ^dḫapaliya- does not work on phonological grounds, because q- represents a labiovelar, which comes from either *Hu̯ or *k^u̯ (before back vowels). Christiansen 2020a:249 takes it as an adjective modifying ãm̃mãma, which she translates as ‘fine’, but she does not suggest any translation for qebelija. Schürr 2019a:561 takes both ãm̃mãma and qebelija as adjectives modifying puwa ‘goats’. For the meaning of the latter, he suggests an ethnicon related to the region Kabalis (oder Kabalia) north of the Xanthos valley and argues that the goats would have had to walk all the way from this region down to Limyra as a punishment. However, he does not offer any parallel for such a type of punishment, which seems altogether very unlikely. Nevertheless, we agree here with Schürr that qebelija is an adjective just like ãm̃mãma, which modify puwa ‘goats’. An etymological connection with Lyc. B qabalime/i- ‘?’ is likely, but impossible to prove due to the lack of any secure semantic assignment.

[D.S.]

Shevoroshkin 2011b:154 suggests a far-fetched Indo-European etymology, which cannot be supported on contextual grounds.

[D.S.]