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The Source of the Hittite hi-Conjugation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

E. H. Sturtevant and
George Bechtel
E. H. Sturtevant
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Hittite verbs fall into two conjugations, one of which shows in the first person singular active an ending -mi and the other an ending -ḫi; it is customary to speak of the mi-conjugation and the ḫi-conjugation. Now Greek verbs are commonly classified as μι-verbs and ω-verbs. Consequently it naturally occurred to Hrozný, Sprache der Hethiter 101, that, as the Hittite ending -mi is identical with Gk. -μι, so Hitt. -ḫi ought to be identical with Gk. -ω. The first attempt to carry through this suggestion in detail has just been published by Couvreur, Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 4.551-73 (1936).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 14 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1938, pp. 10 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © 1938 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 De Hettitische ḫ (Leuven, 1935), reviewed in Lang. 12.210-13, was a summary of a monograph, which has now been published in full under the title, De Hettitische ḫ, een bijdrag tot de studie van het Indo-Europeesche vocalisme (Leuven, 1937). In this paper I shall refer to the latter work as Hett. ḫ2.

2 See Brugmann-Thumb, Gr. Gramm. 69; Hirt, Gr. Laut- und Formenlehre2 175; Schwyzer, Gr. Gramm. 246. [Add Bechtel, Die Vocalcontraction bei Homer 78-86 (Halle a.S., 1908). G. M. B.]

3 Couvreur does not accept this etymology; but see Lang. 14.76-7.

4 See Lang. 12.185-7 and Sapir, JAOS 57.77.

5 See Kurylowicz, Études indo-européennes 254 f.; Sturtevant, Lang. 12.141-3, 211 f.

6 Gk. στᾱ- beside Skt. sthā- ‘stand’ and Hittite (s)ta- might suggest that original t'.) yielded Gk. τ; but there is no difficulty in assuming that Gk. στᾱ- is the regular development of *sta'.+ cons. while zero grade st; yielded Skt. sth-and this consonantism spread at the expense of *stā- and *sti-.

7 The only forms of the 2 sg. pret. with -tta after a vowel that are known to me are ḫal-za-it-ta ‘you called’ (KUB 1.16.2.60), pa-it-ta ‘you gave’ (14.1.1.22), šar-ra-at-ta ‘you broke’ (14.1.1.42). There is at least one instance of interposed s in the present also, namely pa-iš-ti ‘you give’ (KBo.5.6.3.13), but it is even more exceptional than lack of s in the preterit. Such a form as pí-eš-ti ‘you give’ is not in point, since the stem pes- seems to have developed a more or less complete conjugation (cf. 3 sg. pí-eš-zi); see HG 229.

8 Hirt Festschrift 2.230. Cf. Sturtevant, Lang. 2.34; Petersen, Lang. 9.28 f.; Götze, Kulturg. 56.

9 Cf. HG 239-41, 283 f., Lang. 11.182 f.

10 There is also one instance of radical e in a singular form, namely še-ik-ta ‘he knew’ (KUB 7.8.2.15). The 3 pl. pres. is sometimes ša-kán-zi.

11 There is also a pl. imper. a-ar-tin.

12 There is also one instance of radical e in the singular, namely ka-ri-pa-aš ‘it devoured’ (Kub 5.7.1.34).

13 There is also a 3 pl. ḫa-aš-ša-an-zi.

14 Such an e is often written i, and this fact has misled Couvreur, Annuaire de l'Institute de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 4.557, into the remark: ‘En hittite, i.e. ei devient i et non e comme l'indique M. Sturtevant (Comp. Gr., §91). Un traitement i.e. ei > hitt. e serait en desaccord avec le traitement parallele: i.e. eu > hitt. u . . .’ Couvreur is one of those who believe that the sign u had the value o in Hittite, but in the opinion of most scholars the variation between u and ú is purely graphic. I can find no proof that the language had the vowel o at all, but I have (HG 54) mentioned the possibility that the u-diphthongs with short prior member did, as a matter of fact, yield Hittite o, which could not be distinguished from u by the cuneiform script. At any rate, Couvreur's objection to the change of ei > e weighs nothing with me. The proof that the change did take place is furnished (1) by e-ḫu ‘agedum', which is certainly the imperative of *ei ‘go’ with an appended particle, and (2) such forms as our ne-iḫ-ḫi: 2 sg. na-it-ti, 3 sg. na-a-i (parallel with this is u-uḫ-ḫi ‘I see’, where Couvreur would perhaps write o-oḫ-ḫi).

15 See Lang. 7.115 f.