Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

NOTES AND PERSONALIA

ADDENDA

NAVARRO Tomás, the distinguished Spanish phonetician, will give courses in the phonetics of Spanish at the University of Porto Rico during the coming summer session. He is the author of the authoritative treatise, Pronunciación Española (Madrid; first edition 1918, second edition 1921), which has recently been translated into German by Dr. Fritz Krüger of Hamburg, with the title Handbuch der spanischen Aussprache, in the Teubner series.

MISS ELSE M. SALESKI, Assistant in German at the University of Wisconsin, has accepted a call to Milwaukee-Downer College as Professor of German.

THE SOCIETY had, on April 8, 285 members.

REMARKS ON THE LYDIAN INSCRIPTIONS

E. H. STURTEVANT

YALE UNIVERSITY

The complete publication of the Lydian inscriptions by Buckler1 has been followed up almost immediately by Sayce with a suggestive article on their decipherment2-an article, however, which raises more questions than it settles. The following remarks were prompted by it, but I find it necessary frequently to disagree with Sayce's conclusions. In the transliteration of the Lydian characters I shall follow Sayce, except that I shall represent the sibilants as Buckler does.

[blocks in formation]

Among the most important of Littmann's contributions was his discovery of the main features of the Lydian declension. For this Sayce substitutes a number of vague conjectures about the value of suffixed d, s, and l. He gives no clear summary of his opinions on this topic, but at one point or another he makes each of these suffixes mark the subject, the object, and the possessor. I cannot find any reason for adopting so baffling a theory; and so it seems worth while to re-state Littmann's conclusions with the correction of errors which resulted from an imperfect understanding of the values of the letters, and with certain additions gleaned from my study of Sayce's article and of the inscriptions.

In its use as nominative the noun usually ends in s (that is, either s or 54) or in d (for which may appear, particularly in the pronouns). The fact that demonstratives and adjectives take the same ending as the noun which they modify indicates that we have a classification similar to Indo-European gender. Probably s is the masculine-feminine ending, as in Hittite, while d is neuter. The best examples of these endings are the common ess vānas 'this tomb' and est mrud 'this monument.' In case the enclitic k 'and' is appended to a nominative the case ending

1 Sardis 6 Part 2 (Leyden, 1924).

American Journal of Philology 46. 29-51 (1925).

'Sardis 6.1. 31-37 (1916). Compare Holgar Pedersen, Philologica 1. 48-54 (1921). Usually substantives and pronominal adjectives have 5, while other adjectives have s; but in No. 23.3 we have the adjective tauša§.

is omitted, as in Pidänk beside PĮdāns, Artimuk beside Artimus, mruk beside mrud, etc.

There is an oblique case ending in (rarely), which functions as a locative (oral... BakillĮ "in Bacchus' month"), as a dative (Artimuļ= 'Apréμidi), and probably as a genitive (in No. 10.9 katovalļ Sadmēļ seems to be in apposition with the possessive suffix mit).

Littmann thought that the oblique case was used also as direct object, and it appears to be so in several passages. For example, in the Aramaic bilingual (No. 1. 6-8), the curse invoked upon the violator of the tomb runs thus: fakmĮ Artimus Ibsimsis Artimuk Kulumsis aaral biralk klida kofulk piral pelļk bilļ vhbapẽnt. Cowley' translates: "Alors Artemis d'Ephèse et Artémis de Koloé, <sa> cour, et <sa> maison, <sa> terre et <ses> eaux, <sa> propriété et tout ce qui est à lui disperseront." The first word of the above text, however, ends with an enclitic pronoun ml, which is in the oblique case. Perhaps it means 'of this' and refers to the preceding clause which defines the violation of the tomb which the deities are to punish. Then, if Sayce is right in thinking that fak means 'doer,' this word may be the direct object of the verb, and we may translate: 'the doer of it Artemis of Ephesus and Artemis of Koloe shall deprive of court and house, etc.' The protasis which precedes the curse may be illustrated by No. 6.2-6: akit pis esļ vānaļ buk esṇan antolan buk esṇan laprisan fēnsfibid, 'now whoever violates this tomb or these statues(?) or these receptacles.' It is possible, however, that the grammatical object of the verb is the enclitic pronoun it contained in akit, and that we should translate, 'whoever harms it to . . . .,' that is, 'whoever does harm to .....' Again we may compare the use of the dative after such Latin verbs as noceo, adversor, minitor. For the present, therefore, we can scarcely be certain that the oblique case in could function as a direct object.

At any rate we must add to Littmann's declension an accusative singular in n or . This is clear in the inscription on the canoe-shaped vase, No. 30: Titisin emn tisardn fabil Atal Kitval "Titis it, <namely> this vase(?) has made for Atas Kitvas.' Here we have the enclitic pronoun in followed by the appositive phrase emn tisardn. The enclitic in has to be taken as an accusative also in No. 23. 3 and elsewhere. I shall mention one or two other examples below.

The accusative singular neuter ends in d in the phrases pid fasfēnu (No. 23. 14) 'what I possess,' and nãpid faŝfēnu (No. 24. 18) 'whatever I possess.' The meaning of hitollad is uncertain, but its case must be

Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1921. 14.

accusative in the phrases, pis hitollad bitad (No. 23. 9) and pis hitollad bitaad (No. 24. 7); for pis has to be construed as the subject of the verb bita(a)d, and the oblique case would end in or in n. Sayce (pp. 39, 41) translates the word 'images'; but, since d in the nominative belongs to the singular number, we should assume that it is singular here too, until we have some reason to decide otherwise.

As to the plural cases only one point is quite clear: the ending of the oblique case is n or nan. In No. 1. 4-5 we read, esļ mruļ buk esļ vānaļ buk esnan lapirisan, and there are other passages where the oblique cases of singular and plural are similarly coupled. Sayce finds the oblique case of the plural in No. 2. 10: Artimun Ibŝimņaṇ Kulumṇak sivraļmn, which he translates, "priestess of the Artemises of Ephesus and Koloe"; but the meaning of sivralmn is very doubtful, especially as we know from the Greek inscriptions of Lydia that the word for 'priestess' was

κανειν.

The noun whose oblique case in the plural is lapirisan appears in the nominative plural with the enclitic k as laprisak in No. 1. 2 and elsewhere (Littmann mistook the k for a nominative plural ending). In No. 7. 1 we have the form laprisa without the enclitic; but the word stands at the end of the line, and Buckler reports that 'the former existence of an additional letter is uncertain.' For the present, then, we do not know whether the nominative plural was laprisa or whether there was a final consonant which disappeared before the enclitic k. The analogy of Hittite would favor the former alternative and would suggest that the ending a belonged to the neuters.

The verb-form vhbapent usually occurs with two or more subjects, as it does in No. 1. 8 (cited above), and everyone has felt that it must be plural in form, since most singular verbs have the ending d or t without a preceding nasal. Hence one is tempted to conclude that in the phrases levs vhbapent (No. 3. 5) and Artimus. . . . vhbapent (No. 5. 5) levs and Artimus (Artemis of Ephesus and Artemis of Koloe, or the like) are plurals. The inference, however, is seriously weakened by the fact that ändet (Nos. 23. 5, 24. 1), whose ending can scarcely be separated from that of vhbapent, is used with the personal name Mitridastas as subject. If we assume nominative plurals ending in s, it is likely, in view of Hittite, that they are masculine-feminine rather than neuter.

Possession is usually denoted by a declined possessive adjective, more or less similar to Latin meus, paternus, alienus, erilis, etc. This possessive adjective is often formed with a suffix containing 1, and there •See Buckler and Robinson, American Journal of Archaeology 17. 359 (1913).

is a possibility that it is in origin an extension of the l-suffix of the oblique case. It appears in the nominative masculine in a common formula of the epitaphs, e.g. No. 5.1: es§ vānas Atalis "This <is> the tomb of Atas.' Another example is kavek Bakillis ‘and priest of Bacchus.' The less common neuter nominative is illustrated by the contrast between Bakivalis AcoVVOLKλÉOS (No. 20) and Bakivalid Samlid (No. 51), the inscription on the seal in the Louvre. The latter seems to mean '<This is the property > of Bakivas Samas.' The possessive adjective also appears in the oblique case, as in oral . . . . BakillĮ (No. 1.1) 'in Bacchus' month.'

=

....

There is no reason to suppose that the suffix (1)i is the only one which functions as a possessive. The phrase, āndēt Mitridastas Mitratalis kaves, (No. 23. 5-6 and No. 24. 1-2), means, 'Says Mitridastas, priest of Mitras.' Here the possessive suffix must be tali. In No. 22. 10-11 occurs the phrase, kavek Bakillis Armdak, which apparently means 'and priest of Bacchus and of Hermes.' The final k of the last word is the enclitic connective. The underlying Armdas is plausibly analyzed by Sayce (p. 30) as Arm-nda-s, with the suffix which is familiar in placenames of Asia Minor, such as 'Aλáßavda, and Olvóavda. Sayce seems to think that the god was called Armdas, but, if so, there is no possessive suffix to balance the lli of Bakillis. We shall find additional evidence that the god's name was Armas or the like (see below, p. 78). Hence nda may function as a possessive suffix.

On the basis of the above observations we may construct paradigms as follows:

[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »