Principles of the Relation between Local Adverb, Verb and Sentence Particle in Hittite.

• Author: Fortson, IV, Benjamin W.
• Position: Book Review

By F. A. TJERKSTRA. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 15. Groningen: STYX PUBLICATIONS, 1999. Pp. xii + 204. HF1 150.

Hittite possesses a class of adverbial elements pertaining to location, including anda "in(to)," katta "down(wards)," and ser "upwards, on top," that are variously termed preverbs, adpositions, or local adverbs. The varied nomenclature reflects the diversity of functions and syntactic behavior that they famously exhibit and that have been the subject of numerous studies from Hrozny's time on. The book under review is an important addition to that literature, investigating the local adverbs specifically in their relationships to a set of key verbs and to sentence particles.

Chapter 1 ("The Problem of the Local Adverb in Hittite") sets the scene for all that follows. Building on Starke 1977 ("a turning point" in the study of local adverbs [p. 6]), Tjerkstra divides local adverbs into two basic groups, those dependent on the verb and those independent of it (pp. 1, 13f.). A dependent local adverb "influences the meaning or construction of the verb" and cannot be omitted without either dramatically altering the meaning of the predicate or creating an ungrammatical sentence, whereas an independent adverb "has no function within the construction governed by the verb" (p. 14). The theoretical background to Tjerkstra's analysis is the version of functional or valency grammar employed in Dik 1978 and 1989, whose basic terminology and assumptions are outlined on pp. 14-18. (1) The discussion sets up the analysis of the verbs in subsequent chapters in terms of "predicate frames," essentially the subcategorization rules of a particular verb--a listing of the obligatory arguments of the verb together with their syntactic functions and thematic roles ("semantic functions" in Tjerkstra's terms).

Most of the rest of the book, in fact, is taken up with setting up predicate frames for all the attested combinations of local adverb and the verbs iya- "be on one's way, be on the march" (chapter 2), pai-"go" and uwa- "come" (chapter 3), and da- "take" (chapter 4). Chapter 5, "The Interaction of Local Adverb, Verb and Sentence Particle," discusses the presence or absence of a sentence particle with the various adverb-verb combinations, and concludes with an interesting comparative glance at Homeric Greek and English followed by suggested directions for future research. A bibliography and index of cited texts follow; there is no general index, nor is one needed.

The greatest strength of this book lies in Tjerkstra's admirably clear and philologically rigorous organization of a large mass of sometimes very difficult data. Close to four hundred illustrative textual citations are presented, each with chronological labeling (OS, MH, etc.), inclusion of immediately preceding and/or following (translated) context, translation, CTH number, and bibliographical reference to the relevant edition. As so often happens when data are organized and presented effectively, hitherto unrecognized distributional patterns fall out almost automatically. Perhaps chief among these is the finding (p. 175) that there is no connection between the clausal position of a given local adverb and its function. This is an important correction to the received wisdom, which has assumed that such a connection existed, either in whole or in part.

Tjerkstra also suggests an eminently sensible solution to the ticklish question of the function of the Hittite sentence particles (-san, -kan, and their ilk), the...