The Kingdom of the Hittites is often described as ‘the land of a thousand Gods’ and, indeed, from contemporary texts we know of countless deities who were worshipped. While there is evidence for... Show moreThe Kingdom of the Hittites is often described as ‘the land of a thousand Gods’ and, indeed, from contemporary texts we know of countless deities who were worshipped. While there is evidence for the existence of large Hittite stat-Tues, none have ever been found. What happened to them? Show less
My postulation of a phonemic glottal stop in Hittite as the outcome of PIE *h1 (Kloekhorst 2006, 2008, 2014) has been criticized by several colleagues. In the present paper I will reassess the... Show moreMy postulation of a phonemic glottal stop in Hittite as the outcome of PIE *h1 (Kloekhorst 2006, 2008, 2014) has been criticized by several colleagues. In the present paper I will reassess the evidence and argue that most of the points of criticism cannot withstand scrutiny, and that Hittite did indeed contain a phonemic glottal stop in the environments /°VʔV°/ and /ʔV°/. Moreover, it will be argued that the spelling practices employed by the Hittite scribes to note down the glottal stop in these environments perfectly match the Old Babylonian scribal practice for indicating an ’aleph (= [ʔ]) in these positions. Show less
Attested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But... Show moreAttested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But Anatolian is also of central importance for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the last common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Not only is it the earliest attested branch, it has also long been suspected that Anatolian reflects an earlier stage of the proto-language than that underlying the rest of the family.Focusing on the three best-attested Anatolian languages, Hittite, Luwian and Lycian, this book aims to further our understanding of Anatolian, and by extension Proto-Indo-European, by offering in-depth analyses of essential issues in Anatolian historical morphology and semantics. Various well-known as well as several newly adduced topics are scrutinized to determine whether the innovations leading to the discrepancies with the rest of Indo-European took place on the Anatolian or on the non-Anatolian side.The present study suggests that Anatolian is in many respects closer to the ancestor of the other Indo-European languages than is often claimed. Nevertheless, the investigation has also led to new evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from the family. Show less
Inspired by earlier work on the distribution between the sign kán and the sign sequences k/g/qa-an in Hittite texts (Frotscher forthcoming), this article investigates the Hittite usage of three... Show moreInspired by earlier work on the distribution between the sign kán and the sign sequences k/g/qa-an in Hittite texts (Frotscher forthcoming), this article investigates the Hittite usage of three more cuneiform signs of the structure CaR (pár, ḫal and tar) vis-à-vis their corresponding Ca-aR spellings (pa-ar, ḫa-al, t/da-ar). It is argued that the distribution between CaR and Ca-aR spellings is not random, but etymologically determined: consistent spelling with CaR reflects PIE *CR̥ and *CeR[C], whereas alternation between CaR and Ca-aR reflects PIE *CoR. This is interpreted as evidence for a synchronic phonetic / phonemic distinction between the two types of spelling: consistent CaR renders the vowel /ə/, whereas alternation between CaR and Ca-aR denotes the vowel /a/. Show less
This article discusses one of the main problems of the Zalpa-text, namely that its mythological part deals with the relations between Zalpa and Nēša, but leaves Ḫattuša unmentioned, whereas its... Show moreThis article discusses one of the main problems of the Zalpa-text, namely that its mythological part deals with the relations between Zalpa and Nēša, but leaves Ḫattuša unmentioned, whereas its historical part deals with the relations between Zalpa and Ḫattuša, but contains no reference to Nēša. Following Martínez’ 2016 suggestion that in the text’s historical part Ḫattuša does not have the function of capital of the kings who feature in this story, but is merely used as a military base for the campaigns against Zalpa, it will be argued that during the historical events described in the Zalpa-text these kings in fact ruled from Nēša. A major consequence of this interpretation is that Nēša was the capital during the reigns of the early Hittite kings Ḫuzzii̯a I and Labarna I and also that Ḫattušili I ascended the throne there before he moved his court to Ḫattuša. Show less
This article starts with the observation that the Hittite 3sg.pret.act. form šipantaš, šipandaš (OH/MS) ‘(s)he libated’ can hardly be analysed as consisting of a tarna-class inflected stem šipant... Show moreThis article starts with the observation that the Hittite 3sg.pret.act. form šipantaš, šipandaš (OH/MS) ‘(s)he libated’ can hardly be analysed as consisting of a tarna-class inflected stem šipant/da- + the 3sg.pret.act. ending -š, since the OH/MH verbal paradigm of ‘to libate’ contains no other tarna-class inflected forms. It is therefore argued that šipantaš, šipandaš should be analysed as consisting of the consonantal verbal stem šipant- + -š, which implies that the a in šipantaš, šipandaš is an empty vowel. In order to explain the spelling -ntaš, -ntaš vs. the spelling -nza, which is commonly used to note down the sequence /-nts/ < PIE *-nts, it is argued that -ntaš, -ndaš denotes /-ntːs/, the regular outcome of a PIE sequence *-nds. Show less
It is generally thought that the Old Hittite Palace Chronicle was composed by Muršili I (reigned ca. 1620–1590 BCE) and that the anecdotes featuring in this composition thus took place during the... Show moreIt is generally thought that the Old Hittite Palace Chronicle was composed by Muršili I (reigned ca. 1620–1590 BCE) and that the anecdotes featuring in this composition thus took place during the reign of his predecessor Ḫattušili I (ca. 1650–1620 BCE). Recently, Forlanini proposed that the text’s author was not Muršili I but rather Ḫattušili I, who tells about the times of his predecessor Labarna I (ca. 1680(?)–1650 BCE). In the present article it will be argued that both views are difficult to maintain. Instead, six arguments will be presented that rather indicate that the Palace Chronicle may have been authored by Anitta, king of Nēša (reigned ca. 1740–1725 BCE), and that the composition recounts the reign of Anitta’s father Pitḫāna, with some anecdotes even dating back to the times before Pitḫāna’s conquest of the city of Nēša, i.e. before 1750 BCE. Show less
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the phonetics and phonology of the Hittite dental stops, which is especially based on a detailed treatment of the usage of the cuneiform signs TA... Show moreThis article provides a comprehensive analysis of the phonetics and phonology of the Hittite dental stops, which is especially based on a detailed treatment of the usage of the cuneiform signs TA and DA in all positions in the word, and in all chronological stages of Hittite. Show less
In this article it is argued that the Hittite ts-sound spelled by z-signs was not a monophonemic affricate /ts /, as is often assumed, but that Hittite instead contained several clusters of dental... Show moreIn this article it is argued that the Hittite ts-sound spelled by z-signs was not a monophonemic affricate /ts /, as is often assumed, but that Hittite instead contained several clusters of dental stop + sibilant. We can distinguish four of such clusters in intervocalic position: (1) lenis /t/ + lenis /s/, which is spelled Vz-zV; (2) lenis /t/ + fortis /sː/, which is spelled Vz-šV; (3) fortis /tː/ + lenis /s/, which is spelled Vz-zV; and (4) fortis /tː/ + fortis /sː/, which is spelled Vt-šV. Show less
In this article it is argued that the Luwic paradigm known as ‘i-mutation’ originated in ablauting i-stems, which lost the oblique suffix by sound law and spread categorically, through the identity... Show moreIn this article it is argued that the Luwic paradigm known as ‘i-mutation’ originated in ablauting i-stems, which lost the oblique suffix by sound law and spread categorically, through the identity of the oblique cases, initially to the consonant stems, and later to the o-stems. The ā-stems, which are argued to survive as a class not only in Lycian but also in Luwian, escaped the spread because their oblique cases were not identical. The same goes for the u-stems, except in those cases where the stem vowel was consonantal. Show less
In this thesis I discuss Hittite verbs and formations that contain or may contain a nasal infix as well as nu-verbs, in order to outline the development of these types from PIE to Hittite and... Show moreIn this thesis I discuss Hittite verbs and formations that contain or may contain a nasal infix as well as nu-verbs, in order to outline the development of these types from PIE to Hittite and establish the extent to which the Hittite nasal verbs are related to comparable formations in the other Indo-European languages. Apart from treating the formal and etymological aspects of these verbs, this study also focuses on the semantics of the nasal affixes. In Hittitological literature they are often assumed to have a causative or a factitive meaning, but these functions do not cover the semantics of all the verbs with these affixes: there are infixed and nu-verbs that are clearly not causative, in fact there are even several intransitive nu-verbs. In this thesis it is therefore argued that the best solution to embrace the polysemy of nasal affixes is to assume that the underlying function of these morphemes is raising in transitivity. Show less
