Le funzioni sintattiche degli elementi avverbiali di luogo ittiti.

• Author: Melchert, H. Craig
• Position: Book Review

Le funzioni sintattiche degli elementi avverbiali di luogo ittiti anda(n), appa(n), katta(n), katti-, peran, para, ser, sara. By RITA FRANCIA. Studi asiana, vol. 1. Rome: HERDER, 2002. Pp. x + 245. [euro]20 (paper).

This book, a revised version of the author's doctoral thesis, presents a longitudinal study of the syntax of the Hittite "paired" local adverbs (e.g., ser "above" vs. sara "up"). Following a well-established model, she bases her analysis on a restricted corpus of assured Old, Middle, and Neo-Hittite compositions attested in contemporary manuscripts of the respective periods.

This is an important work that significantly advances our understanding of one of the most complex features of Hittite syntax. The quality of the philological foundation is very high. Among more than four hundred textual citations there are inevitably some where one will differ with the interpretation, but I have found virtually no cases that may be fairly labeled as outright errors. The respective text corpora are also well chosen, and claims regarding chronological developments based on them are thus reliable. Francia reads the texts sensitively and refrains from trying to force recalcitrant examples into any rigid preconceived schema. Both the interpretation of individual passages and the analysis as a whole are marked by an abundance of sound common sense, a quality that has too often been in short supply in previous treatments of this topic. Francia forthrightly concedes that there is more subjectivity involved in assigning functions to the local adverbs than we would wish, but does not shrink from the task of making as much sense as she can of the complex facts. The essential validity of her approach is affirmed by the fact that in the great majority of cases she is able to arrive at unequivocally correct interpretations.

I may summarize Francia's principal results as showing that the use of the local adverbs is more differentiated in Old Hittite than previously alleged, but remains far more stable in Middle and Neo-Hittite than generally supposed. She accepts the basic contrast of paired "directional" and "adirectional" adverbs established for Old Hittite by Frank Starke, but correctly insists, against Starke, that in OH both the dative-locative case and the adirectional local adverbs do occur with verbs of motion, indicating the position that results from the movement (pp. 7ff., 57, and 68). On the other hand, there are also a few instances of the...