sturtevant - the e-perfect in hittite

7/27/2019 Sturtevant - The E-perfect in Hittite

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Linguistic Society of America

The e-Perfect in HittiteAuthor(s): E. H. SturtevantReviewed work(s):Source: Language, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Sep., 1927), pp. 161-168Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409318 .

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THE e-PERFECT IN HITTITEE. H. STURTEVANT

YALE UNIVERSITYThe Hittite documents show many instances of an interchange ofthe vowels e and a. Since the variation is not uniform, and neither

vowel of the pair is restricted to any phonetic surroundings or morpho-logical categories, we must apparently assume several causes, andsound method requires the separate treatment of groups of words whichshow parallel phenomena. In this paper I propose to discuss thevariation in monosyllabic verbal roots which end in a consonant. Thatthe matter needs elucidation appears from these typical examples:eizi 'he is'egir 'they were' a'anzi 'they are'ari 'he has arrived'erir 'they had arrived' aranzi 'they have arrived'Hrozn~' discussed the variation in the radical syllable of verbs, butwithout coming to any satisfactory conclusion. Forrer2 groups to-gether paradigms of a number of verbs which exhibit the phenomenon,under the captions: 'Umlaut von Verben der mi-Konjugation' and'Umlaut von Verben der hi-Konjugation'. Tenner3 supplements theforms given by Forrer, and remarks quite justly: 'Mit dem nur vor ieintretenden germanischen Umlaut hat dieser hethitische Vokal-

wechsel jedenfalls nichts zu tun'.Tenner confines his attention to three verbs of the hi-conjugation,and precisely these verbs, I think, suggest the true source of the varia-tion in most of the words discussed by Hrozn' and Forrer. The verbsare citable as follows: 'know' 'die' 'have arrived'Pres. 1 Aaggahhi aggahhi arhi2 akti akti3 akki aki ari1 Die Sprache der Hethiter 169, 170f. (1917).2 Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlindischen Gesellschaft NF 1.213f. (1922).3Ein Hethitischer Annalentext des Konigs Mursilis II 18f. (Leipzig, 1926).

161


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162 E.H. STURTEVANTP1. 1 Aekkweni2 ekteni erteni

3 akkanzi aranziPret. 1 Aaggahhun akun arahhun2 akta3 akkig, ekta akkig,akta aragP1. 1 Aekkwen erwen2 ekten akten3 ekkir ekir,akir erirImperat. 2 Aak ak3 akduP1. 2 erten3 arantuPart. Kekkanza akkanza aranza

With the exceptionof the forms printedin italics, these verbs showthe vowel a in the singular,the third person pluralpresentand im-perative,and in the participle,while the vowel e appearsthroughoutthe plural,except the third person presentand imperative. The fewforms which vary from this schemeare of courseto be explainedbyanalogy.I have pointedout4that someof the personalendingsof the Hittitehi-conjugationare remarkablysimilarto those of the Indo-Europeanperfect tense (2nd sing. ti = tha, 3rd sing. i = e, 3rd pl. pret. ir besideSkt. ur, Lat. are,s frequentlyinsertedbeforesecondpersonalendingsas in Lat. vidisti,vidistis,etc.). If, then, the hi-conjugations in partidentified with the Indo-Europeanperfect, the stem-vowel e in thepluralof our three verbs is to be equatedwith GermanicpluralslikeGothic berum we bore' beside bar 'he bore'. The fact that there isusuallyno indicationof lengthin the e-formscited above does not con-stitute an objection. If the original vowel quantities survived inHittite, at any rate they cannot be inferredfrom the orthographyofour documents; e-eg-zi = kar 'he is' and e-Id-ri = arac 'he sits' aretypical examples.The correctnessof our equation becomes obvious upon a closerscrutinyof the three verbs. OtherHittite wordsclearlyrelatedwith

'LANGUAGE 2. 33f. (1926).


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THE e-PERFECT IN HITTITE 163dakk- 'know' are lagaid 'omen'6, akiya- 'give an omen'6, and ?akuwa'eyes'7. It follows that the originalmeaningof the word was 'see',and so we have a preterito-presentike Greekolia, Skt. veda,Gothicwait 'I know'beside Lat. vidi 'I have seen'. We must thereforecon-nect Hittite ?akk- with Gothic sailvan,Anglo-Saxonseon'see', fromIE *seqg-8.Hittite ?akuwa 'eyes' preservesthe labializationof the qy, as dokuid = Lat. quis 'who', and kuen- 'strike': Gk. Oeivw strike', ~obvos'murder'. The inconsistentrepresentationof the sound-groupkw isdue to the limitationsof the cuneiformwriting. Sincethere was onlyone availablesign containing he consonantw, namelywa, the groupswe, wi, etc., had to be written otherwise. Hence we find ku-en-zifor kwenzi he strikes',ku-isfor kwi" who',etc. On the other handitwas impossible o write two consonants ogetherat the beginningof aword, and so we find ku-wa-da-ki-nu-un for kwa.kinun 'I frequentlystruck' (preteritof the iterative stem from kwen- 'strike'), ku-wa-atfor kwat 'why',and ku-wa-pifor kwapi 'when', 'where'. To be sure,it would have been easy to write the group kwa in the interiorof aword (*`d-ak-vua); ut a clumsy orthography which is sometimesnecessaryis frequently used where it could be avoided. For sanhzi'petit' it was necessaryto write either?d-an-ah-zi r ad-an-ha-zi;hencebeside the accurate ?d-an-hu-un 'petii' we find also sd-an-ah-hu-un9.An extra vowel had to be writtenin kar-ap-zi or karpzi he musters',but not in kar-ap-an-zi or karpanzi they muster'. We shouldthere-fore.write the Hittite word for eyes ?akwa, and derive it from Pre-Indo-European**soqyd. Quite possibly it is the same as IE *oqy-(Greek caae,ChurchSlavonicoko-, etc.) 'eye' with an initial s fromcontaminationwith *sequ- see'.

The labializationwas, no doubt, regularly ost beforeconsonantsasin Latin. Hence we have the verb-forms: akti, sekteni, sakta, sekta,lekten, lakdu (cf. also sak, sekkweni, 8ekkwen). Analogy carried thesimple k through the rest of the paradigmnnd into the derivatives,?agail 'omen',and lakiya- 'give an omen'.6 See Weidner,Archiv iir Keilschriftforschung1. 10 (1923);Sommerand Ehelolf,BoSt. 10. 99.6 Friedrich, Zeitschriftfiir Assyriologie NF 3. 198and fn. 7 (1926).7Friedrich, Staatsvertrdgedes Hattireiches in HethitischerSprache 35f. (1926).This is Friedrich's transcription of the word; a better transcription is suggestedbelow.8For further connections in IE, see Walde-Pokorny, VergleichendesWorter-buchderIndogermanischenSprachen2. 477-80 (1927).1Sommer, Boghazkdi-Studien7. 45.


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164 E.H. STURTEVANTThe preteritof Goth. sailvan s salv 'he saw', s8lvun'they saw', thestem-vowelof the singularrepresentingIE o, and that of the plural

IE 9. It followsthat in our Hittite verb also gakkicorrespondso IE*soqye,while 9ekkiris equivalent to IE *s8qyre,*s8qyr, or the like. Wehave, then, fairly clear evidence of qualitativeablautin Hittite. Thisharmonizeswith my suggestion1' hat the Hittite ablative ending ts(az, za, etc.) is the nil-gradeof the suffix*tos,whichforms ablativaladverbsin the IE languages;we may now conclude that Hittite didnot break away from the parentstock until after the ablaut changes.The verb ak- 'die' does not usually have the meaning of the IEperfect. Ekamples rom the law code are these:?72 (Hrozn'): tdk-ku GUD-d? A. SAGHI.A -ni ku-el-qa a-ki BE.ELA. SAG II GUD pa-a-i, 'If an ox dies in anyone's field, the ownerofthe fieldgives two oxen'.?197 (Hr.): (6) tdkr-kuLY-dg SAL-an HAR.SAG-i e-ip-zi LC-na-dg wa-dg-tul na-dg a-ki (7) tdk-ku e_,-ri-mae-ip-zi SAL-na-da wa-dg-ta-ig SAL-za (8) a-ki, 'If a man siezes a woman on a mountain, the man'scrime,and he dies. If he seizes in a house, the woman'scrime,and the womandies.'The participle of ak- does, to be sure, fall into line with the IEperfect; for D.MESakkantes 'Di Manes"'1 is parallel to Greek otrTEOV77Koes'the dead'. In general, however, the verb corresponds o&roevO Kwrather than to v WVfKa. We have, in short, the same situ-ation as in a large proportionof the verbsof the hi-conjugation. Thereis no lack of hi-verbs denoting a state or condition of the subject(9uppi 'he is [ceremonially] pure'12,zinir 'man ist fertig"', Galli 'egarappai 'dergrosseGottesdienst st aus'14),but a majorityof them havethe meaningof the IE presenttense formations(e.g. arri 'he washes',peddai 'he hastens, flees', ?pjanti 'airvbet'). From the point of viewof Hittite we must continueto speakof the hi-conjugation, atherthanof the perfecttense; for in general t is parallel n meaningto the mi-conjugation. I would therefore see in the participle akkantel 'thedead'a survivalof the original orceof the verb,whilethe morecommonaki 'he dies' is a part of the far reachingHittite assimilationof theoriginalperfect to the present.

10 Journal of the American Oriental Society 47. 182-4 (1927).11Hroznk, BoSt. 3. 1397; Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 47.12 Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 7.13G6tze, Hattusilis 99.14 Friedrich, ZA NF 2.2942.


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THE e-PERFECTIN HITTITE 165If we may assumethat Hittite aki oncemeant 'he is dead', there isno difficulty n connecting t with Latinegit, perfectof ago'drive,pass,

do'. The connecting ink is suggestedby Latinphrases uchas aetatemagere 'pass one's life' and qui tum agebant who were alive at thattime'. If we put the verb into the perfect in this meaningwe getsomethingparallelto vixit 'he has lived'; i.e. 'he is dead' (cf. PlautusBacchides 151: vixisse nimio satiust iam quam vivere). Possibly, how-ever, we should start from the meaning'do, perform'; n which casethe development of meaning was similar to that seen in Greek KEA770Tes'thosewho have finishedtheir work;the dead'.Latin aggre'they have done' may, then, be the precise phoneticequivalentof Hittite ekir 'they died'. That the stem-vowele was IEis shownby Greek ixa, Skt. ija 'I drov&e. Icelandic5k must be ana-logical; possiblythe 5 is due to a contaminationof o in the singularand 8 in the plural (comparebelow). The vowel a of this and similarLatin perfectshas often been discussed16,nd widely divergentsourceshave beensuggested. It has not usuallybeenconnectedwithGermanic9 in pluralpreteritsbeside a in the singular,partly becauseGermanicshowsthe alternationof a and 9 onlyin roots with an initial consonant,and partly becausethe a which thus alternateswith 9 representsIEo. It is, however, possiblethat the Germanicrestrictionto one typeof root is a secondarydevelopment,and it is also possible that inLatin?gi, etc., the 9 which intruded from the plural supplantedanearlier o. The parallelism of Hittite aki: ekir with s'akki: A kkir andthe identity of the latter pairwith Goth. salv:s9Ivunmakessome suchdevelopmentplausible. At any rate there is little doubt that ekir isto be identifiedwith Lat. aggre.There are several differentverbs from the Hittite root ar-, whoseforms and meanings must be kept apart. Friedrich"6 istinguishesbetweenarnuzi'he brings' (originally causesto come'),artari'he rises,comes, takes his stand, stands', arai (also araizzi) ' rises', and our verb ari. This last Friedrich akes to mean'hearrives',but as far as my observationsgo it alwayspermitsa perfectmeaning,'he has arrived,is come'. Typicaledxamplesre these:Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazkoi 4.4.3.27. nu-mu KI. KAL. BADI.NA unRHar-ra-na an-da a-ar-da (28) nu-za A.NA KI.KAL.BAD

16See Sommer, Handbuch der Lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre2 51, Brug-mann,Grundris8der VergleichendenrammatikerIndogermanischenprachen22. 3. 27, 4271.16 ZA NF 2.41-5; cf. G6tze, ib. 2.18. The meanings in the text are not preciselythose given by either of these authors, but accord with my own observation.


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166 E.H. STURTEVANT2-wa-a-tar a-pi-yu i-ya-nu-un, 'The army had reached me at Har-ranas,and I there took commandof the army.'

KBo. 3.4.2.15 = Hrozn?, BoSt. 3.182.15: nu GIM-anI.NA HAR.SAGLa-wa-sd-ar-hu-un, 'And when I was come to Mt.Lawasa.... 'KBo. 4.10.1.5: nu-ut-ta UDUMSI.IM.TI.KA a-ri, 'And for youthe day of your fate is (willbe?) here.'Law-Cpde ?31 (Hr.): tdk-ku L1t-dg EL.LUM GIM-d-Id wa (??i?)-e-li-eg na-at an-da a-ra-an-zi na-an-za A.NA DAM.SU da-a-i, 'If afree man and a slave womanare in love (?) and they have come to-gether, and he takes her for his wifeFriedrich loc.cit.) citesar'kizzias the iterativefromari 'hearrives';bu?tn fact ari retains its originalperfect meaning 'he has arrived',while argkizziis the correspondingpresent 'he arrives'17.Typicalexamplesfollow:Hattusilis 2.10-13 (pp. 14-17 G6tze): 'The enemy from Turmittasbegan continually to assail the country Tuhhuppiyas;and becauseIppassanaswas devastated, he reached (a-ar-di'-ki-it) uwataras.'KBo. 3.4.3.70: 'He reached (a-ar-dS-ki-it)Zazzisas,and took theUpper Country'.The IE languagespresent a series of forms parallelto those justcited from Hittite. The causative arnuzi corresponds o Skt. rndti,Gk. 6ppvvr; rtari,with its preteritartat,comes as close as a Hittiteverb could to the Skt. aorist drta,and Gk. 5cpro; he sk-formation arikizziis parallelwithSkt. rcchdti; nd ari finds ts analogue n the Skt. perfectdra, pluraldrur. Hittite arai alone remainswithout an IE formationto match it, unless this is furnishedby the to-stem of Latin orior.That is a possibility which I'plan to discuss at length on anotheroccasion.The meaningsalso of the Hittite root are nearlyall found in the IElanguages,but they are not so neatly parcelledout amongthe severalformations. Hittite has evidentlypreservedseveraldistinctionswhichhave faded out in the IE languages,althoughit is possible to findpassageswhichillustratethe originalvalues. Thus rnp6tis causative

17 Sommer (BoSt. 4.132, 10.21f.) holds that the Hittite sk-formations have an'iterative-durative' function. Many of them certainly have; but it is a mistaketo attempt to force them all into that category. The verb cited above is one ofa considerable group whose use cannot be distinguished from the correspondingpresents in the Indo-European languages. Apparently the Hittite 'iterative-duratives' represent a secondary development analogous to the Latin inceptivesin -sco.


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THE e-PERFECTIN HITTITE 167in Rigveda 9. 10.6: dpa dvd'rd matina'm pratnd' r~wantikardvahtheancient poets open the doors of worship'; and Greek 6pvvpyps regularlycausative in the active voice. The meaning of artari appears in Gk.cpro 'he started up'. The Old Persian sk-imperfect arasam correspondsin use precisely with Hittite arskit; e.g. Behistan 2.6: yata adam arasamMadam, 'until I reached Media'. The Skt. perfect shows the force ofHittite ari in Rigveda 2.9.3: ydsmdd y6ner udd'ritha, 'from whatwomb thou art sprung'. Latin orior, whether or not it is connectedin form, has the same meaning as Hittite arai, 'rise up'; even the sug-gestion of hostility is contained in the compound adorior.The IE languages nowhere present clear evidence for the vowel 9in the perfect of the root *er-; but in view of the Hittite forms, Skt.dra, drur probably contain IE E;the Greek perfect 6pwpa s analogicalin any case.As we have more than once assumed, the third pl. perf. of the IElanguages (Skt. drur, Lat. ?gare, Tocharian wenidre'they have said')appears in Hittite as the third pl. pret. (sekkir, ekir, erir), althoughthe corresponding third sing. perfect (Skt. dra, Greek 'xe, Lat. ?git)must be identified with the Hittite third sing. present (lakki, aki, ari).This distribution of forms undoubtedly stands in some relation to thefact that in the mi-conjugation also the third pl. preterit ends in ir(e.g. eSzi 'he is', esdir they were'). In view of Skt. third pl. aoristslike ddur 'they gave', it may be that the ending ir was present fromthe beginning in the mi-conjugation, but on the whole it is more likelythat in prehistoric Hittite, as in Vedic Sanskrit, the perfect came tobe used sometimes as a preterit, so that it was in a position to con-tribute an ending to the preterit tense (which, on any theory, is ofcomposite origin).Once the ending ir had established itself as a preterit, its place wastaken in the present (originally perfect) by the ending anzi of the mi-conjugation. This alien origin explains the fact that in our verbs thethird pl. present differed in vocalism from the other plural forms(ak-anzi, aranzi). The third pl. imperative also came from the mi-conjugation, and differed in vocalism from most of the plural forms(arantu). Another form from the mi-conjugation is clearly the partici-ple, and this also follows the vocalism of the singular.The contrast thus established between the vocalism of the third pl.preterit on the one hand, and the third pl. present and imperative,and the participle, on the other, reacted upon certain verbs whichoriginally had the stem-vowel e throughout. Thus from es- 'inhabit,


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168 E. H. STURTEVANTdwell; be' we have the singular forms elmi, eszi, e un, efta, es, eldu,as wellas the plural ormsestenandesir;but the analogicalproportion,erir:aranzi = elir:x, yielded alanzi 'they are,' and similarly we getalandu 'let them be', and asanza'being'. Just so epmi 'I take' (:Lat.adipiscor, oapi,etc.) alwaysshowsthe stem-vowele, exceptin appanzi'they take', appandu'let them take', appanza'taking',and the verbalnounappatar taking, dwelling'. All the formsof ed- 'eat' have radicale, except adanzi 'they eat', adandu 'let them eat', adanna 'to eat'(infin.), adanzi 'to eat' (supine),and the iterative stem azk- (e.g. az-zi-ik-kdn-zi 'they eat').That these forms with secondarya are analogicaland not due to aphoneticdevelopment(say, anticipationof the a of the followingsylla-ble), is shown by the fairly numerous hird pl. presentswhich retainradical e; e.g. essanzi 'they use, treat', sesanzi 'they sleep', memanzi'they say', wekanzi they ask, demand'.Sincetwo, at least, of the verbswhichchangede to a in the third pl.present (e?- and ed-) must have had short radical vowels, it seemsnecessaryto concludethat the inducingforms (lekkir,egir, erir) alsohad short vowels in the radicalsyllable. This is an additionalreasonfor thinkingthat Hittite had lost the originaldistinctionbetweenlongand short vowels. The frequent double writing of a vowel (e-e?-zi,a-ar-d?,ar-ha-a-ri)shouldthereforenot be interpretedas evidenceoflong quantity.The variationbetween e and a in the consonantalverbs is thereforeto be traced to the same source as the variationbetween o and ? inIE perfect. We have found three verbs which show traces of thepeculiar formationboth in Hittite and in the IE languages. Verylikely others will be discovered. Many Hittite verbs, however,oweto analogyan a in the radicalsyllable of the third plural presentandimperative,the participle,and certain other forms.Scarcely ess importantthan our main conclusion s the demonstra-tion than the Hittite hi-conjugations of compositeorigin. Whilesomeof its salient featuresareof the sameoriginas the IE perfect, t usuallycarries he meaningof the IE present(or aorist),and someof its forms(i.e. thirdpluralpresentandimperative,and the participle)comefromthe original inflection of the present. It will not be surprisingiftraces of aorist inflectionare foundin the hi-conjugation.

sturtevant - the e-perfect in hittite

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