Hittite – Morphology, Part 1
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Luraghi, Silvia
Inglese, Guglielmo
Introduction to the morphology of Hittite. Topics of this lecture include ways of word formation and derivation.
 So hello there and welcome back to our course on the Hittite language. After having discussed the phonology of Hittite, today we start approaching the domain of Hittite morphology. In this first lesson on Hittite morphology, we will discuss some basic aspects of the Hittite morphological type and its word classes. Then we will focus on word formation processes, including derivation and compounding. So like the majority of the ancient Indo-European languages, Hittite is a synthetic and fusional language. These means that words are usually made up by more than one morpheme, and grammatical morphemes may carry several meanings at once. The basic word structure consists of root and inflectional endings. In between these, derivational morphemes can be inserted. So let us see two examples of morphological structure. So first, let us consider the verbal form Zinus cansi. This is made up by a root c, then the causative morpheme nu, the pluralional morpheme sk and the ending anzi. So here you can clearly see that the language is fusional, because we have cumulative exponents. For instance, the ending anzi indicates both person, that is, third, number, that is, plural and also verbal tense, present and mood indicative. Nominal forms can also have a certain degree of complexity. Consider, for instance, the word meannas here. So this is made up by the root of the verb grow, me, the derivational suffix an and the genitive ending, as. So these word means of growth. Again, we have cumulative exponents here, because the ending us indicates both genitive case and singular number. Word classes in Hittite can be divided for convenience into groups. Inflected and non-inflected. Inflected word classes include nouns and adjectives, verbs, pronouns and numerals. Non-inflected word classes include adverbs, conjunctions, negations and particles. So nouns, adjectives and verbs and pronouns will be discussed in the presentations on nominal and verbal inflection. I will now discuss numerals as well as non-inflected word classes. So the problem with Hittite numerals is that they are mostly spelled with log grams, so that only in a few cases we are sure of their real Hittite form. It is clear that cardinal numbers from one to four are inflected to different extent. And this happens in several other European languages as well. And this is the reason why we include them among inflected word classes. So inflected numerals follow the declensions of pronouns on which we will return later. The first four numerals are the numerals for one, which is spelled often with the logogram one and then the ending us. So we have Cs1. The numeral for two, which is again spelled with two most often, but we have the ordinal dan. And here the dental at the beginning suggests that this is actually the Indo-European word for two. Then for three, we again have the logogram spelling and this likely stands for teres three. And then we have the numeral for four, miewas, which has no other Indo-European cognates. So let us turn to non-inflected word classes starting with adverbs. So adverbs can be non-derived, such as caru or lamar, meaning formerly or instantly. In some cases, the neuter nominative accusative of adjectives can be used adverbially, as it's for mekki, which means much when it's used adverbially, but means many when it's used as an adjective. We also have a number of suffixed adverbs, such as ili, that we have already seen in adverbs, such as nesili in the language of nesad, it is in hittite. These hili suffix normally makes manner adverbs, such as aran hili here, like an eagle, based on the noun haran eagle. Finally, we have a group of local adverbs that encode different spatial relationships. Local adverbs deserve special mention here. These adverbs are organized in two different sets. The members of the first set here have the shape of nouns in the directive case, and these adverbs in the place to which. These are anda, into, appa, beck, katta, down, para, forth, and sara, upwards. Adverbs of the second set are more variously shaped, and maybe are more ancient. These indicate static location, and are, you can see them here, so they are andan, inside, appan, behind, kartan, below, peran, also spelled piren sometimes, in front, before, and ser, above. So it must be noted that members of set one from middle hittite onwards tend to behave as preverbs, whereas members of set two develop into postposition. Among conjunctions, we have non-subordinative conjunction, which is basically initial connectives like nū, ma, en, or enclinic connectives like ma and ya. Then we have subordinative conjunctions, such as man, when, or if, machan, when, or as, taku, if, and kuit, because. In hittite, we have two negations. Nattā, here, is a factual negation, and is often spelled with the a-calogram, u, as you can see here. And le is the other negation, and is always prohibitive. Particles are a very heterogeneous class. With the term particle, we refer to a number of clitical elements that perform different functions. Apart from pat, which is hosted by the word it focalizes, the other particles are vakar-nagal particle. These are dimodal particle man, kuatatīv wa, or war, reflexive tsā, the local particles, and the focused particle pat, which again is a non-vakar-nagal enclinic. And we return on the function of these particles in our lessons on hittite syntax. After having discussed work classes, let us now turn to word formation processes. Let's start with derivation. Derivation in hittite can involve either affixation or redeplication. Affixation is by far the most frequent derivation on strategy. Hittite mostly relies on suffixation with only two verbal prefixes, dhodār of limited productivity. There are no productive infixes or circumfixes, even though some verbs show traces of infixation inherited from Proto-European. Beside affixation, another derivational device is redeplication, which is a test that both in the nominal and in the verbal domain, but is not productive in hittite historical times. So summing up, suffixation is by far the more frequent derivation on strategy. The most common pattern found in suffixation is addition of suffixes. So we have, for example, the verb libate, which we have already seen in our lessons on phonology. From this verb, we can derivate the noun ispantutsi by means of addition of the derivation on suffix utsi. And from ispantutsi, we can add another suffix asr and we get the noun libation vessel. So the root traces of also a different system of suffix substitution, especially with adjectival basis. Let us see one example. So here you have the adjective pārku, hai, with this final u. Now, when we make the abstract noun hait by means of the suffix asti, we would expect suffix addition and then pārgu asti. But instead what we have is pārgasti. So basically here the u of pārku is substituted with asti. This happens again with the causative verb, which is pārknu instead of expected pārkunu, and with the fianti verb pārkes instead of expected pārkues. The system of suffix substitution goes back to the colon system of alternation that can be reconstructed for proto-Inde-European. So let us now see some examples of derivational suffixes. Nominal suffixes are especially numerous, so I only give here a couple of examples. For instance, here in the slide you can see the suffix atar that we have already discussed when discussing a tight stress. So this suffix derives abstract nouns from different bases. So we have from the verb akku, drink, we have akku atar, drinking. From the adjective palki, we have palkatar, with, and again note here that the i is substituted with atar here. So this also belongs to the colon system of alternation. And then from the noun mother, anni, we have anni atar, motherhood. Another example is the adjectival morpheme ia, which derives adjectives from nouns, as in the case of ispantilla nocturnal derived from espant, night. Verbal suffixes constitute a smaller set, but on the other hand verbal suffixation is very productive. Some of these suffixes can take different bases. So the suffix ach is said to be a factative morpheme, it attaches to nouns and adjectives. The suffix i is a denominated suffix and it attaches to nouns only. The suffixes e and s are a stative fientive or fientive only respectively, and they both attach to nouns and adjectives. The suffix nu is a causative suffix and is the only one that can attach to both nouns, adjectives and verbs. And finally, the suffixes sk, sa and anna indicate plurality in various ways. For example, iterativity or imperfectivity. We will return on these suffixes in the presentation on morphosyntics. So these are some examples of verbal suffixes. We have the denominals suffix i here, it attaches to nouns to derive the corresponding verb. Thus, from lulu, prosperity, here, we have lulu y, cause to thrive, cause to prosper. The suffix s is often described as fientive, since it indicates a change of state. It can attach to nominal bases. For instance, from the adjective parkum, we have parkes, become high that we have already seen before. The suffix nu is causative. From the basic transitive verb war, to burn in transitive, we get warnu, to burn something. Finally, sk, as I have mentioned, is a pluralism that attaches to verbs. So from the verb ania, work, we have aniske, continue to work. As already mentioned, prefixes are not productive in hittite. The only two prefixes are the proverbal, the tic prefixes u for proximal deices and pe indicating distal deices. Given their special meaning, they mostly attach to motion verbs. So compare the following pairs. We have udda, carry here, but pedda, carry away, and unna, drive here, but penna, drive away. Reduplication is also a non-productive word formation process by the time of our historical sources. Since it is not clear what the meaning and function of reduplication was, we only discuss its formal properties here. In the verbal domain, we have fold reduplication as in assas or asses from ass-s-set. And more frequent is partial reduplication, however. So the vowel of the partial reduplication syllable can be either e as in wewak from wek, and we see the same also in le lanilla. The vowel can be e as in titha, it tanders, or the vowel can be the same vowel as the root. This is the case of kurur, derived from kur-kat. Nominal reduplication can also be full or partial. Nouns that show fold reduplication are, for example, wante, wantema, lightening, or harci, harci, stormy weather. Nouns that attest partial reduplication are tithita, nose, tetana, hair, or mammal, meal. Let us finally discuss compounding. Compounding is relatively infrequent and scarcely attested in hittite, especially when compared to languages that make extensive use of compounds such as Greek or Indo-Aryan. We have a very few nominal compounds. For instance, we have dayuga here, which means two years old and is compounded of the numeral da, meaning two, and yuga. Then we have the word appa-siwat, which means future and is compounded of appa-after and siwat, day. And then we have pappaneknes, which means brothers of the same father, and it is a composition of pappafadr and negna-brother. We also have some multi-word expressions. These are complex words that are made up by the syntigmatic combination of two distinct words. Multi-words expressions differ from true compounds because in compounds the first element is uninflected and the compound is written as a single word, so this is especially clear in pappaneknes, in which pappa should be a noun inflecting according to the a-class. In multi-word expressions, on the contrary, both items are inflected and are separated in writing. In these cases, it is the placement of determinants that shows that we are dealing with a single complex word. Take for instance the expression mani-yahiyas hiska, meaning administrator or literally lord of the administration. So this expression is made up by the noun hiska, lord, and by the genitive modifier mani-yahiyas of the administration. However, the determinative lu, which in principle indicates a male person and thus belongs together with hiska, is played before mani-yahiyas, indicating that the whole complex phrase behaves as a single multi-word expression. Other examples of the same pattern are the combination of a preverb and a verb, as in para andá, divine power, or certain combinations of adjectives and nouns, as in párquí haste, which means pure-born, but it indicates a specific cut of meat called the pure-born. So in this lesson, we have introduced some basic notions of hidden morphology. We have discussed word classes with a focus on non-inflected ones, and we have discussed word formation strategies, including composition and derivation. So stay with us for the next lesson, where we will discuss nominal morphology. Thank you for your attention. Thank you.
 So hello there and welcome back to our course on the Hittite language.  After having discussed the phonology of Hittite, today we start approaching the domain of Hittite morphology.  In this first lesson on Hittite morphology, we will discuss some basic aspects of the Hittite morphological type and its word classes.  Then we will focus on word formation processes, including derivation and compounding.  So like the majority of the ancient Indo-European languages, Hittite is a synthetic and fusional language.  These means that words are usually made up by more than one morpheme, and grammatical morphemes may carry several meanings at once.  The basic word structure consists of root and inflectional endings.  In between these, derivational morphemes can be inserted.  So let us see two examples of morphological structure.  So first, let us consider the verbal form Zinus cansi.  This is made up by a root c, then the causative morpheme nu, the pluralional morpheme sk and the ending anzi.  So here you can clearly see that the language is fusional, because we have cumulative exponents.  For instance, the ending anzi indicates both person, that is, third, number, that is, plural and also verbal tense, present and mood indicative.  Nominal forms can also have a certain degree of complexity.  Consider, for instance, the word meannas here.  So this is made up by the root of the verb grow, me, the derivational suffix an and the genitive ending, as.  So these word means of growth.  Again, we have cumulative exponents here, because the ending us indicates both genitive case and singular number.  Word classes in Hittite can be divided for convenience into groups.  Inflected and non-inflected.  Inflected word classes include nouns and adjectives, verbs, pronouns and numerals.  Non-inflected word classes include adverbs, conjunctions, negations and particles.  So nouns, adjectives and verbs and pronouns will be discussed in the presentations on nominal and verbal inflection.  I will now discuss numerals as well as non-inflected word classes.  So the problem with Hittite numerals is that they are mostly spelled with log grams, so that only in a few cases we are sure of their real Hittite form.  It is clear that cardinal numbers from one to four are inflected to different extent.  And this happens in several other European languages as well.  And this is the reason why we include them among inflected word classes.  So inflected numerals follow the declensions of pronouns on which we will return later.  The first four numerals are the numerals for one, which is spelled often with the logogram one and then the ending us.  So we have Cs1.  The numeral for two, which is again spelled with two most often, but we have the ordinal dan.  And here the dental at the beginning suggests that this is actually the Indo-European word for two.  Then for three, we again have the logogram spelling and this likely stands for teres three.  And then we have the numeral for four, miewas, which has no other Indo-European cognates.  So let us turn to non-inflected word classes starting with adverbs.  So adverbs can be non-derived, such as caru or lamar, meaning formerly or instantly.  In some cases, the neuter nominative accusative of adjectives can be used adverbially,  as it's for mekki, which means much when it's used adverbially, but means many when it's used as an adjective.  We also have a number of suffixed adverbs, such as ili, that we have already seen in adverbs,  such as nesili in the language of nesad, it is in hittite.  These hili suffix normally makes manner adverbs, such as aran hili here, like an eagle, based on the noun haran eagle.  Finally, we have a group of local adverbs that encode different spatial relationships.  Local adverbs deserve special mention here. These adverbs are organized in two different sets.  The members of the first set here have the shape of nouns in the directive case,  and these adverbs in the place to which. These are anda, into, appa, beck, katta, down, para, forth, and sara, upwards.  Adverbs of the second set are more variously shaped, and maybe are more ancient.  These indicate static location, and are, you can see them here, so they are andan, inside, appan, behind, kartan, below, peran,  also spelled piren sometimes, in front, before, and ser, above.  So it must be noted that members of set one from middle hittite onwards tend to behave as preverbs,  whereas members of set two develop into postposition.  Among conjunctions, we have non-subordinative conjunction, which is basically initial connectives like  nū, ma, en, or enclinic connectives like ma and ya.  Then we have subordinative conjunctions, such as man, when, or if, machan, when, or as, taku, if, and kuit, because.  In hittite, we have two negations. Nattā, here, is a factual negation, and is often spelled with the a-calogram, u, as you can see here.  And le is the other negation, and is always prohibitive.  Particles are a very heterogeneous class.  With the term particle, we refer to a number of clitical elements that perform different functions.  Apart from pat, which is hosted by the word it focalizes, the other particles are vakar-nagal particle.  These are dimodal particle man, kuatatīv wa, or war, reflexive tsā, the local particles, and the focused particle pat,  which again is a non-vakar-nagal enclinic.  And we return on the function of these particles in our lessons on hittite syntax.  After having discussed work classes, let us now turn to word formation processes.  Let's start with derivation.  Derivation in hittite can involve either affixation or redeplication.  Affixation is by far the most frequent derivation on strategy.  Hittite mostly relies on suffixation with only two verbal prefixes, dhodār of limited productivity.  There are no productive infixes or circumfixes, even though some verbs show traces of infixation inherited from Proto-European.  Beside affixation, another derivational device is redeplication, which is a test that both in the nominal and in the verbal domain,  but is not productive in hittite historical times.  So summing up, suffixation is by far the more frequent derivation on strategy.  The most common pattern found in suffixation is addition of suffixes.  So we have, for example, the verb libate, which we have already seen in our lessons on phonology.  From this verb, we can derivate the noun ispantutsi by means of addition of the derivation on suffix utsi.  And from ispantutsi, we can add another suffix asr and we get the noun libation vessel.  So the root traces of also a different system of suffix substitution, especially with adjectival basis.  Let us see one example.  So here you have the adjective pārku, hai, with this final u.  Now, when we make the abstract noun hait by means of the suffix asti, we would expect suffix addition and then pārgu asti.  But instead what we have is pārgasti.  So basically here the u of pārku is substituted with asti.  This happens again with the causative verb, which is pārknu instead of expected pārkunu,  and with the fianti verb pārkes instead of expected pārkues.  The system of suffix substitution goes back to the colon system of alternation that can be reconstructed for proto-Inde-European.  So let us now see some examples of derivational suffixes.  Nominal suffixes are especially numerous, so I only give here a couple of examples.  For instance, here in the slide you can see the suffix atar that we have already discussed when discussing a tight stress.  So this suffix derives abstract nouns from different bases.  So we have from the verb akku, drink, we have akku atar, drinking.  From the adjective palki, we have palkatar, with, and again note here that the i is substituted with atar here.  So this also belongs to the colon system of alternation.  And then from the noun mother, anni, we have anni atar, motherhood.  Another example is the adjectival morpheme ia, which derives adjectives from nouns,  as in the case of ispantilla nocturnal derived from espant, night.  Verbal suffixes constitute a smaller set, but on the other hand verbal suffixation is very productive.  Some of these suffixes can take different bases.  So the suffix ach is said to be a factative morpheme, it attaches to nouns and adjectives.  The suffix i is a denominated suffix and it attaches to nouns only.  The suffixes e and s are a stative fientive or fientive only respectively, and they both attach to nouns and adjectives.  The suffix nu is a causative suffix and is the only one that can attach to both nouns, adjectives and verbs.  And finally, the suffixes sk, sa and anna indicate plurality in various ways.  For example, iterativity or imperfectivity.  We will return on these suffixes in the presentation on morphosyntics.  So these are some examples of verbal suffixes.  We have the denominals suffix i here, it attaches to nouns to derive the corresponding verb.  Thus, from lulu, prosperity, here, we have lulu y, cause to thrive, cause to prosper.  The suffix s is often described as fientive, since it indicates a change of state.  It can attach to nominal bases.  For instance, from the adjective parkum, we have parkes, become high that we have already seen before.  The suffix nu is causative.  From the basic transitive verb war, to burn in transitive, we get warnu, to burn something.  Finally, sk, as I have mentioned, is a pluralism that attaches to verbs.  So from the verb ania, work, we have aniske, continue to work.  As already mentioned, prefixes are not productive in hittite.  The only two prefixes are the proverbal, the tic prefixes u for proximal deices and pe indicating distal deices.  Given their special meaning, they mostly attach to motion verbs.  So compare the following pairs. We have udda, carry here, but pedda, carry away, and unna, drive here, but penna, drive away.  Reduplication is also a non-productive word formation process by the time of our historical sources.  Since it is not clear what the meaning and function of reduplication was, we only discuss its formal properties here.  In the verbal domain, we have fold reduplication as in assas or asses from ass-s-set.  And more frequent is partial reduplication, however.  So the vowel of the partial reduplication syllable can be either e as in wewak from wek, and we see the same also in le lanilla.  The vowel can be e as in titha, it tanders, or the vowel can be the same vowel as the root.  This is the case of kurur, derived from kur-kat.  Nominal reduplication can also be full or partial.  Nouns that show fold reduplication are, for example, wante, wantema, lightening, or harci, harci, stormy weather.  Nouns that attest partial reduplication are tithita, nose, tetana, hair, or mammal, meal.  Let us finally discuss compounding.  Compounding is relatively infrequent and scarcely attested in hittite, especially when compared to languages that make extensive use of compounds such as Greek or Indo-Aryan.  We have a very few nominal compounds. For instance, we have dayuga here, which means two years old and is compounded of the numeral da, meaning two, and yuga.  Then we have the word appa-siwat, which means future and is compounded of appa-after and siwat, day.  And then we have pappaneknes, which means brothers of the same father, and it is a composition of pappafadr and negna-brother.  We also have some multi-word expressions. These are complex words that are made up by the syntigmatic combination of two distinct words.  Multi-words expressions differ from true compounds because in compounds the first element is uninflected and the compound is written as a single word, so this is especially clear in pappaneknes, in which pappa should be a noun inflecting according to the a-class.  In multi-word expressions, on the contrary, both items are inflected and are separated in writing.  In these cases, it is the placement of determinants that shows that we are dealing with a single complex word.  Take for instance the expression mani-yahiyas hiska, meaning administrator or literally lord of the administration.  So this expression is made up by the noun hiska, lord, and by the genitive modifier mani-yahiyas of the administration.  However, the determinative lu, which in principle indicates a male person and thus belongs together with hiska, is played before mani-yahiyas, indicating that the whole complex phrase behaves as a single multi-word expression.  Other examples of the same pattern are the combination of a preverb and a verb, as in para andá, divine power, or certain combinations of adjectives and nouns, as in párquí haste, which means pure-born, but it indicates a specific cut of meat called the pure-born.  So in this lesson, we have introduced some basic notions of hidden morphology.  We have discussed word classes with a focus on non-inflected ones, and we have discussed word formation strategies, including composition and derivation.  So stay with us for the next lesson, where we will discuss nominal morphology. Thank you for your attention.  Thank you.
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