Hethitisch [degrees]uant- und Verwan(d)tes: Untersuchungen zur Vertretung des indogermanischen Possessiv-suffixes -vient- in den anatolischen Sprachen.

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

Hethitisch [degrees]uant- und Verwan(d)tes: Untersuchungen zur Vertretung des indogermanischen Possessiv-suffixes *-vient- in den anatolischen Sprachen. By MICHAEL GEORG MAIER. Dresdner Beitrage zur Hethitologie, vol. 42. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2013. Pp. xix + 304. [euro]78.

In this revised and augmented version of his 2012 Erlangen dissertation Michael Maier treats in exhaustive fashion all possible reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European possessive suffix *-went- in the Indo-European languages of Anatolia. A brief introduction is followed by chapters with discussion of the relevant data from each language, a conclusion with a useful tabular appendix summarizing the results, bibliography, and indices. The book is virtually free of typographical errors. Two works cited, Plath 1994 and Atterer 2011, are inconveniently missing in the bibliography.

In order to achieve as complete coverage as possible and to avoid prejudging individual cases, Maier wisely took as his starting point for the Hittite the retrograde glossary of Jin Jie. As a result, his treatment is almost exhaustive: I missed only [.SUP.GIS]PA-(u)want- provided with/having staffs (IBoT 1.36 iii 41, 49), surely a genuine possessive in -want- to the word for staff, stick thus far written only logographically (but note dat.-loc. sg. [.SUP.GIS]PA-hi at KBo 17.35:4), and the adjective das(u)want- 'blind'. The former is of interest for confirming the mild productivity of the want- suffix, but the latter is likely irrelevant, being an "individualizing-stigmatizing" extension in -ant- to an adjective *das-wo- (thus with Cop 1964: 58).

For the most part Maier correctly distinguishes the genuine examples of possessive denominal want- from other homonymous formations: 1) verbal past participles (especially but not exclusively to stems in -un-); 2) -ant- extensions to adjectives in -u- or -wa-; 3) "ergatives" to neuter stems in -u-or -au-. He also properly adopts the analysis of Oettinger (1988), according to which by a reanalysis of verbal nouns in -war, -was Hittite productively formed quasi-participles such as par(a)snawant-squatting to par(a)sna(i)- squat. Nevertheless, his most important finding is that Hittite does have rather more genuine examples of denominal -want- than previously acknowledged (at least eighteen), even if the degree of productivity appears to be less than that in Luvian.

One naturally will differ with Maier in his analyses of some individual words and textual...