ugaritisch. kurzgefasste grammatik mit Übungstexten und glossar. (elementa linguarum orientis 1)by...

Archiv für Orientforschung (AfO)/Institut für Orientalistik

Ugaritisch. Kurzgefasste Grammatik mit Übungstexten und Glossar. (Elementa LinguarumOrientis 1) by Josef TropperReview by: Dennis PardeeArchiv für Orientforschung, Bd. 50 (2003/2004), pp. 412-417Published by: Archiv für Orientforschung (AfO)/Institut für OrientalistikStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41668651 .

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412 Rezensionen

kreten Situation der Aufnahme Hukkanas in die könig- liche Familie entspringen, deren Reinheit besonders geschützt werden muß.3 Die Tatsache, daß der Ver- tragstext nicht den gängigen heth. Begriff für den Bruch von Sexualtabus ( hurkel „Greuel") verwendet, erklärt Verf. in Übereinstimmung mit früheren Aus- legern mit den Besonderheiten der diplomatischen Sprache.

In den Staatsverträgen tritt natta ãra vor allem im Verbot der Auslieferung von Flüchtlingen aus Hatti auf, eine Bestimmung, die typisch für die nicht-paritä- tischen Verträge der heth. Herrscher ist und diese gegenüber dem Vertragspartner, der selbstverständlich zur Auslieferung von Flüchtlingen verpflichtet ist, be- vorteilt. Verf. führt verschiedene zeitgenössische und jüngere altorientalische Parallelen zu den heth. Be- stimmungen an (128-130), weist jedoch nicht auf eine ältere Parallele hin, die von einer ähnlichen Praxis in der altbabylonischen Zeit zeugt. Der überlegene Yarim- Llm von Halab weist seinen Verbündeten Zimri-LIm von Mari brieflich daraufhin, daß Flüchtlinge aus dem Land des Addu (von Halab) (grundsätzlich) nicht aus- geliefert würden.4 In Briefen der internationalen Kor- respondenz wird die natta ãra- Wendung mehrfach in dem Hinweis darauf verwendet, in Hatti sei es nicht üblich, Menschen zu exekutieren. Verf. weist mit Recht darauf hin, daß sich fast alle einschlägigen Passagen auf die Sicherheit ausgelieferter Personen beziehen, auch wenn Hattušili III. in Text 30 {KBo 1.10) aus- drücklich damit argumentiert, daß ein Mörder in Hatti nicht hingerichtet würde, sondern Kompensation lei- sten müsse.

Eine weit weniger homogene Gruppe bilden die in Kap. VI unter dem Stichwort „Administration and Justice in Hatti" versammelten Belege. Neben Verbo- ten in Instruktionen und besonderen Vorrechten des Vertragspartners in den Tarbuntašša- Verträgen, die durch ãra hervorgehoben werden, wird auch der einzi- ge Beleg diskutiert, der gegenüber einer Gottheit ein indirektes „Verbot" mit Hilfe der natta ãra- Wendung ausspricht (Text 41): Hattušili III. ruft die Sonnen- göttin von Arinna an, es sei nicht rechtens {natta ãra), daß er nochmals für eine Schuld seines Bruders zur Rechenschaft gezogen werde, für die dieser selbst schon gebüßt habe. Die Übertragung der Rechtsspra-

che, wie sie etwa aus den Instruktionen bekannt ist, in die religiöse Sphäre ist hier Mittel der Individualisie- rung des Schuldbegriffs (cf. 166f.). Schließlich behan- delt Verf. in diesem Abschnitt auch den Passus des Telipinu-Erlasses, der die Bestrafung von Prinzen auf deren Person beschränkt und die Einbeziehung von Familie und Haushalt verbietet. Einer Anregung H. Hoffners folgend übersetzt Verf. dabei die Wendung izzan GIŠ-rw mit „(from) the chaff (down to) the (entire) log". Dieser meristische Ausdruck stehe für „irgendetwas". An der eigentlichen Bedeutung kann tatsächlich kein Zweifel bestehen, doch läßt die akk. Wendung hämü { u ) husãbu , die auch Verf. als „equi- valent" (157 Anm. 677) zum heth. Wortpaar anspricht, eine solche meristische Deutung nicht zu. Insbesonde- re die Beschwörungsrubrik hämü husãba u mimma ša ïnï sülí („Zur Entfernung eines Strohhäcksels, eines Holzsplitters oder von irgendetwas anderem in den Augen")5 zeigt, daß für das Akk. sicher von einer Grundbedeutung „Strohhäcksel und Holzsplitter" aus- gegangen werden muß, die dann für „das Kleinste, Geringste, Unbedeutendste" steht.6 Für das Heth. eine andere Grundbedeutung des Ausdrucks anzusetzen, erscheint mir insbesondere angesichts dessen, daß der älteste Beleg für den Ausdruck im Heth. aus einem zweisprachigen, akk.-heth. Text stammt, problematisch.

Das Buch schließt mit einer kurzen Zusammenfas- sung, einem Appendix, der fragmentarische und unpu- blizierte Belege für {natta) ãra zusammenstellt, Kon- kordanzen und Literaturverzeichnis. Es bleibt, Verf. für diesen soliden Überblick zu {natta) ãra zu danken, der einen wertvollen Beitrag zur heth. Sozialgeschich- te liefert und den man für die diskutierten Textstellen immer mit Gewinn konsultieren wird.7

Würzburg. Daniel Schwemer.

3) Cf. dazu Text 42, mit Kommentar S. 150ff., über das Fehl verhalten der babylonischen Prinzessin Tawannanna am heth. Königshof.

4) A. 4251+ (= J.-M. Durand, FM VII 8) Vs. 27. Entgegen anderen Stellungnahmen liegt hier kein früher Beleg für ein „Tempelasyl" vor; vielmehr spiegelt der Text genau die Haltung des überlegenen Partners, die auch die heth. Ver- tragstexte kennzeichnet (s. Rez., Die Wetter gottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens im Zeitalter der Keilschrift - ¡culturen, Wiesbaden 2001, 212 Anm. 1467 mit Lit.).

5) BAM VI 510 Rs. IV 40; dazu zuletzt J. Fincke, Augenleiden nach keilschriftlichen Quellen, Würzburg 2000, 236.

6) S. dazu zuletzt K. Radner, Die neuassyrischen Privat- rechtsurkunden als Quelle für Mensch und Umwelt, SAAS 6, Helsinki 1997, 254 mit Belegen und weiteren Äquivalenten im Akk. und Aram.

7) Cf. nun auch H. A. Hoffner, NABU 2003/27. ') Ugaritische Grammatik {Alter Orient und Altes Testa-

ment 273; Münster, Ugarit- Verlag, 2000), pp. 1056. See my

Josef Tropper, Ugaritisch. Kurzgefasste Grammatik mit Übungstexten und Glossar, xii +168 pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2002 {Elementa Linguarum Orientis 1). € 28,-.

As is to be expected with so little time having intervened between Tropper's monumental reference grammar1 and this study grammar, little is to be ex-

Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004)



Rezensionen 413

pected in the way of modifications in the author's conception or presentation of the grammar itself. As regards the grammatical description, then, this is es- sentially an abbreviated version of the longer work. The presentation has been reduced to an outline of the grammar with most theoretical discussions, alternative interpretations, and examples removed. The major chap- ters correspond in the two works, though the sub- sections do not always bear the same numbers (for example § 4, on pronouns, is organized somewhat differently in the two versions). As I have already described and reacted with the previous work in some detail (see note 1), there is no need to repeat here what I have already said. What does require addressing is the new material here, viz., the selection of texts and, though less new in that the reference grammar had not one word list but two (a list of Semitic roots attested in Ugaritic and a list of Ugaritic words), the glossary.

Nine texts are provided in the Textauswahl (pp. 108-21). Each is transliterated and accompanied by very brief grammatical and semantic notes (" Kommen- tar "). The first six texts were taken from PRU II2 with the editor's hand-copy reproduced without change. A vocalized text is provided for only one, RS 92.2010, a recently published letter.3 Missing, therefore, are: (1) re- presentative copies (as is well known, Virolleaud used a normalized representation of the Ugaritic signs and attempted only in a general way to represent the actual lay of the lines on the tablet), (2) full translations (one finds only translations of quotations from these and other texts in the grammar itself), and (3) vocalizations for most of the texts. One should not be surprised at the first absence since T., in spite of his interest in the epigraphic side of the study of Ugaritic,4 has never

made a pretense of being himself an epigrapher. It should further be remarked that T.'s transliteration does not slavishly follow Virolleaud's and there are, therefore, differences between the copy reproduced here and the transliteration, though these are few since the selected texts are, for the most part, relatively complete.5 The absence of translations means that the student must do without the most meaningful device for grasping how the grammarian really understands the text in question; in practice, this means that this grammar will only be useful, except perhaps for the most gifted of students, in a class-room situation. The virtual absence of vocalized texts means that the comparative Semitist who picks up this grammar will not have at his/her disposal the shorthand analysis of the morpho-syntactic structure of a text that is the primary function of a modern vocalization.6 This particular omission is both surprising and regrettable, for, as I remarked in my review of Ugaritische Grammatik , T. has gone the furthest of any who have written grammars of Ugaritic in proposing vocalizations. The wish implied there that T. would favor us with his own translations of complete texts accompanied by a complete vocalization goes, therefore, unrealized here.

Since T. has chosen to vocalize only that text for which a vocalization had previously been proposed, viz. that of the editors of the text (see note 3), it is perhaps legitimate to see that vocalization and its differences when compared with that of the editio princeps as an explicit statement of his views in opposition to those of the editors. However that may be, perhaps readers of this review may be interested in my reactions to the stances taken implicitly in T.'s vocalizations. In each case, I will cite T. first, then the vocalization indicated in RSO XIV. - lines 1,6: /1Î/ vs. /lê/. My views on this preposition go back to my early work on the preposition in Ugaritic;7 these have evolved8 but have not changed substantially.9 All the North- west-Semitic evidence goes against this prefixed preposition having a long /i/ while the evidence from Ugarit itself (viz., the representation by {le-e} in a 'polyglot' vocabulary) goes against it having a short vowel because, as far as we know, there was no phoneme /e/ (/. e ., a short vowel of this quality) in Ugaritic. Ergo , the vowel length is long but the quality is

review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, here p. 41 7ff. and online for the complete version (pdf) http://www.univie.ac. at/orientalistik/Afo.html#pardee.

2) Ch. Virolleaud, Le Palais Royal ď Ugarit V. Textes en cunéiformes alphabétiques des archives sud , sud-ouest et du petit palais ( Mission de Ras Shamra 11; Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, Klincksieck, 1965).

3) P. Bordreuil and D. Pardee in Études ougaritiques. I. Travaux 1985-1995 (ed. M. Yon, D. Arnaud; Ras Shamra- Ougarit XIV; Paris, Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2001): "Seconde Partie: Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville. Textes de la «Maison d'Ourtenou» trouvés en 1986, 1988 et 1992," ch. VIII "Textes alphabétiques en ougaritique," text 50 (pp. 375-79). Though this volume is dated 2001, it did not appear until well into 2002 (I first saw it in early June) and T. apparently did not see it before submitting the manuscript of Ugaritisch , for the citation on p. 163 is incomplete and the book is described as "erscheint voraussichtlich 2000." T. was able to include RS 92.2010 here, therefore, because the editors made the texts from 1986-1992 available to him in advance of publication.

4) As evidenced in his discussion of palaeography and his presentation of sign-form variations in Ugaritische Gramma-

tik (pp. 15-26), abbreviated in Ugaritisch to pp. 5-9. 5) The most glaring case is in RS 15.111: 9 (T.'s text 6):

the transliteration "[w . yt]n(.)«n" squares neither with the copy nor with the tablet (see review of Ugaritische Gramma- tik , remark to p. 223 [§ 41.221.52c], etc., in particular note 483), nor, for that matter, with his own transliteration in Ugaritische Grammatik , p. 705 (§ 76.523) (see my review, ibid.).

6) Pardee, JAOS 117 (1997) 377-78. 7) UF 8 (1976) 288. 8) JNES 50 (1991) 305. 9) See remark to p. 52 (§ 21.341.21c), etc., in my review

of Ugaritische Grammatik .



414 Rezensionen

/ê/, produced by contraction of the original preposition and an expanding element /-ay/.10 - line 1 : /hidmirata/i/ vs. /hidmirati/. This is a personal name of non-Semitic origin and the question, unresolvable on the basis of current evidence, is whether such names were adapt- ed to Ugaritic morpho-syntax in the matter or case marking or not. We assumed such to be the case, T. leaves the question open (though he furnishes no remark on the question in his Kommentar). - line 2: /ba(li-ya/ vs. /ba(liya/. T. indicates morpheme seg- mentation consistently in the case of pronominal suffixes, both genitival and accusatival, but only there. I must confess that I do not find the notation useful for it certainly does not correspond to a Ugaritic sensibility (the accusative pronominal suffix written {-nn} is occasionally set off by a word divider, but this phenomenon occurs only with two-consonant suffixes and relatively rarely there). Because this difference is consistent in T.'s text, I will not remark on it further. - line 2: /rugum/ vs. /rugum/. T.'s vocalization reflects his hypothesis that the original base of the imperative was /qtul/ (hence the vowel in the first syllable is a secondary murmur- ed vowel) while ours reflects the fact that both Akkadian and early Canaanite had /qutul/.11 - line 6: /šab(ida wa sab(ida/ vs. /šab(ada wa šab(ada/. T. indicates explicitly in footnote 275 that he believes /šabcida/ to represent a contraction of /sab(a + *ida / while our vocalization reflects the hypothesis that {sb(d} represents the existence in Ugaritic of a second multiplicative morpheme /-da/ that would have existed alongside Ada/, i. e ., this /-da/ would have been attached directly to /sab(a/, the m. s. acc. form of the number noun meaning 'seven'. In my review of Ugariti- sche Grammatik , remark to p. 150 (§ 33.116.2), etc., I grant that the distribution of forms ({-d} is attested with štf but with no other number) indicates that T.'s basic hypothesis, that the {-d} represents some kind of contraction rather than an actual by-form of {-id}, is probably correct. The question remains, however, whether the Ugaritic form, which should have been derived from /šab(a + *ida /, represents the loss of an entire syllable (resulting in the vocalization indicated by T.12) or the intervocalic dropping of /V followed by vowel contraction (/šabVida/ > /šab(aida/ > /sab(êda/).13 The Amar- na forms appear to represent one or the other: E A 215: 6 {ši- ib-e-TA-an}, E A 196: 4 {si-BI-T[A-a]-an}, and E A 221: 6 {ši-BI-TA-an}. Unfortunately, the use of signs with {i} or {e} is not sufficiently consistent in peripheral Akkadian to allow for a firm conclusion in favor of one vocalization or the other.

- line 8: /marhaqtüma/ vs. /marhaqtama/. In his Kommentar , T. indicates explicitly that the preferred analysis of this form is as a m-preformative noun (rather than as the combination of a preposition mn + a non-preformative noun) in the locative case. Our vocalization reflects the same analysis of the noun as m-preformative, but with that noun in the accusative case (an example of the classic 'adverbial accusative'). In my estimation, the very existence in Ugaritic of the locative case is in doubt, not to mention the extent of use if the form was in fact preserved there. This is a good example of T.'s tendency to extrapolate from very few data to posit the preservation in Ugaritic of an archaic form. The datum here is the fact that the infinitive in the so-called 'absolute' usage (corresponding to the Hebrew 'infinitive absolute') indubitably ended in /-u/; the question is whether that fact allows for the reconstruction in Ugaritic of a fully functioning locative/adverbial case. Since the adverbial accusative is well attested in the later West-Semitic languages, we have preferred that analysis for Ugaritic. - line 9: /qâ/îltu/ vs. /qaltu/. T.'s choice of these two alternative vocalizations is based on uncertainty whether the vowel of the G-stem /QTLa/ form reflects the historical second consonant that has disappeared, i. e. *QWM would give a base form with an /a/- type vowel, while *ŠYT would give a base form with an /i/-type vowel. I know of no evidence in Northwest Semitic for such a distinction; rather, precisely this difference of vowels expresses activity vs. stativity in both Hebrew and Aramaic (/qãm/, 'he arose', vs. /mët/mït/, 'he is dead'). The other difference, T.'s representation of the stem vowel as long (vs. ours as short), is incomprehensible since he says explicitly in this grammar (p. 63 [§ 75.52]) that the historically long vowel would have become short if the syllable is closed. In my review of the Ugaritische Gramma- tik , I have dwelt at some length (seventh and eighth introductory general remarks) and repeatedly (in remarks on various individual forms) on T.'s tendency to commit this error and need not discuss it further here. Finally, T. remarks in this grammar (§ 75.52), as he did in the reference grammar (§ 75.521c), that there is evidence for the presence of a "Bindevokal" between the verbal stem and the pronominal element in roots mediae infirmae (the form cited is mtt, 'you have died', which cannot have been /matta/14 for the two tokens of {t} show that they were separated by a vowel). Because additional forms showing the presence of such a vowel are attested in unpublished texts from the House of Urtenu, Bordreuil and I have in our just-published Manuel ď ougaritique15 adopted the form /qãlãtu/ when vocalizing this text and like forms in other texts.16 - line 9: /ha/innãnu/ vs. /hannina/. Because of the phenomenon of particle accretion (the agglomeration of particular elements to form larger particles) and the apparent slipperi- ness of the vowel quality in the most basic particular elements, the vocalization of the Ugaritic particles is largely a guessing game. I have adopted as purely conventional the distinction /hanna/ for the presentative particle ( hinněh in Hebrew) vs. /himma/ for the conditional particle Çim in

1()) Cf. J. Blau and S. Loewenstamm, UF 2 (1970) 25, n. 35; J. Blau and J. Greenfield, BASOR 200 (1970) 16.

M) See review of Ugaritische Grammatik , remark to p. 426 (§ 73.121.2).

12) In Ugaritische Grammatik (p. 150 [§33.116.2]), T. actually preferred a much less plausible development: "/ sabaC(id -/ < *šabaaid - < *šabca>ida."

13) My former student Robert Hawley has convinced me that the writing {ta-a-an}, with many orthographic variants, in the el-Amarna texts represents the same historical morpheme as Ugaritic Ada/ but with the additional morpheme /-n(a)/ (i Studies in Ugaritic Epistolography [dissertation, Uni- versity of Chicago, 2003]). Indeed, when one observes all the variants, it appears impossible to accept that they are all different writings of the multiplicative logogram {TÀ-AM}.

14) Hebrew /mátta/ is the result of series of phonetic developments: /*mït+ta/ > /mítta/ > /mátta/ (Philippi's Law).

15) Manuel ďougaritique (Paris, Geuthner, 2004) II 92. 16) On the representation of the 'linking' vowel as long,

see review of Ugaritische Grammatik , remark to p. 642 (§ 75.521c).



Rezensionen 415

Hebrew). Though the paucity of data only allow this to be termed a convention, it is not arbitrary. The convention is based on the following facts: (1) it is in all likelihood the presentative particle that is at the origin of the Hebrew definite article, where the vowel is /a/; (2) though there is no direct evidence in Ugaritic for the vowel of the conditional particle, there is a by-form of hm that is written with {i}, showing the vocalization /}imma /. These data permit the hypothesis that the basic presentative particle was /ha+n+ma/ or /ha+n+na/ while the basic conditional particle was /hin+ma/ or /hin+na/. Hebrew hěn and hinněh functioning as presenta- tives would thus represent a contamination of the first vowel by that of the conditional particle (or, to put it another way, a falling together of the two forms). The second vowel of the form hnn is equally uncertain. T. does not explain his choice of /ã/ but it presumably has to do with the existence in West Semitic of particles with /-ãn/ as the second syllable, in particular the antonym of hnn, that is tmn, 'there', which comparative evidence shows probably to have been /tammãn-/. The /i/ in our vocalization was adopted by analogy with hlny , of similar meaning to hnn , for which a polyglot vocabulary provides the vocalization {al-li-ni-ya}.17 Since there is, however, no other evidence for an enclitic particle /ni/, we have more recently hypothesized that the /i / in /halliniya/ is owing to the following /y/ and that the form without this final element would plausibly have been /hallina/. Hence the ana- logical value of {al-li-ni-ya} for the vocalization of hnn disappears and in the Manuel ďougaritique we now vocalize /hannana/.18 - line 1 1 : /šulmu/ vs. /šalima/. The distribution of modifiers to šlm in this formula show that the latter word is more plausibly a verb than a noun: (1) kil šlm , 'everything is fine' (RS 11.872, RS 16.137bis, RS 17.139, RS 94.2479); (2) šlm kil , 'fine is everything' (RS 15.008, RS 34.124); (3) kil mid(m) šlm , 'everything is very fine' (RS 8.315, RS 18.038, RS 20.199); (4) šlm , '(it) is fine' (RS 16.379, RS 18.031, RS 18.147, RS 29.095, RS 92.2005); and (5) mid šlm, '(it) is very fine' (only here). The different forms in Ugaritic may be behind the common usage in the Akkadian letters from Ugarit of šulmu in the first part of the formula, šulmanu in the second.19 - line 12: /ba(la/iya/ vs. /ba(liya/. Without a translation, it is uncertain what T.'s analysis of the form is. In a footnote, he says that the form may be in the absolute case, which according to him would have ended either in /-a/ or -0 (§ 54.6). In his section on vocatives, he expresses no firm opinion on what case vowel, if any, would have been used in vocative nouns that are not preceded by one of the vocative particles (§ 54.2). The only certain case of a III-^ noun in the vocative is {ksi} in RS 34.126: 13, which may be vocalized /kussa^/ and may illustrate the use of the genitive case in

vocative expressions.20 In the grammar itself (p. 99 [§ 94]), T. explicitly analyzes and translates the sentence as cleft in nature ("Und was meinen Herrn betrifft ..."), and that syntactic analysis seems to indicate that the first vocalization here (/ba(laya/) reflects the morphological analysis as the absolute case - one that must be queried, since in Akkadian already the absolute case of masculine singular nouns had -0 ending. Our vocalization, in any case, does not reflect the analysis as a vocative (we translate "Mon maître," not 'Ô mon maître'). We took the noun as nominative in a casus pendens 21 , i. e ., /ba(ll/, 'my master', to which enclitic /-ya/ has been attached. This is a particularly common structure in Ugaritic prose and has nothing to do with the use of matres lectionis in the later Northwest-Semitic languages, T.'s preferred analysis of many instances of {-y}.22 - 1. 13: /šulma-hu/ vs. /šulmahu/. Because both the masculine and singular forms of the third person singular suffixal pronouns in the later West-Semitic languages can only have arisen from proto-forms with short vowels (e. g ., Hebrew /-õ/ < /-a+hu/, Aramaic /-ëh/ < /i+hu/, Arabic /-hu/), it is highly unlikely that the 3 m. s. pronominal suffix in Ugaritic already showed a long vowel and that option should not, therefore, be accorded equal place with the representation as a short vowel - especially not in a grammar for beginners. - 1. 19: /tatîb/ vs. /tatib/. This is another incomprehensible retention of a long vowel in a closed syllable (see above, remark to /qâ/îltu/ in line 9). All the more incomprehensible since in § 75.52 (p. 63) T. provides an example of the prefix conjugation with a short vowel in the second syllable (/yaqum/) as an illustration of the following rule: "Die betreffenden Langvokale werden sekundär gekürzt, sofern sie in geschlos- senen Silben erscheinen." - line 2 1 : /ba(la/iya/ vs. /ba(lïya/. This case does not show the same syntactic ambiguity between a vocative or one of two subjects in a cleft sentence as does the one in line 12 discussed above: {b(ly} here is the single subject of a 3 m. s. verb and I see no basis on which to take it as a vocative nor to see the sentence as cleft. In his Ugaritische Grammatik , T. did consider that option (see p. 883 [§ 94.21], as opposed to p. 883 [§ 94.21], where the sentence was translated as simple declarative). Surely the placement of the direct object between the subject and the verb is insufficient evidence for such an analysis and indubitably the writing with {-y} is insufficient basis for the analysis (see remark above to line 12). As above, T.'s first vocalization option seems to reflect the analysis of the noun as in the 'absolute' case in a casus pendens , but I do not see what /ba(liya/ might be since the genitive hardly appears to be a viable option here, neither as a true genitive nor as an expression of the vocative. - line 23: /yuba(<ir/ vs. /yabaC(ir/. T.'s vocalization reflects his view that the preformative syllable in the D-stem should have been /u/ in the light of comparative Semitic, ours the fact that the 1 st common singular form is attested with /a/ (e. g. , ,7) RS 20.426B: 5' (Nougayrol, Ugaritica V [1968], text

138). On the interpretation of this entry, which the editor did not translate, see J. Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription {Harvard Semitic Studies 32; Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1987) 32-33, 121.

IX) See in the glossary, vol. II, p. 160. 19) For a more detailed argument, see D. Pardee, "Une

formule épistolaire en ougaritique et accadien," Semitic and Assyriological Studies Presented to Pelio Fronzaroli by Pu- pils and Colleagues (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2003) 446- 75, esp. p. 452.

20) See further my remarks in the review of Ugaritische Grammatik to pp. 314-15 (§ 54.54.214a), etc., and to p. 315 (§ 54.214b), etc.

21) In T.'s footnote 276, this syntactic analysis is consid- ered possible, but it is linked, for unexplained reasons, with the analysis of the noun as in the 'absolute' case.

22) See my review of Ugaritische Grammatik , first general introductory remark and remark to pp. 37-38 (§ 21.322.5), etc.



416 Rezensionen

{ámlk} = ̂ amallik/). T. reasons that the /a/ of this latter form is secondary, under the influence of the /V, while we reason that since the /a/ is attested in this person and there is no proof of another vowel in the other persons we may assume that the /a/ was paradigmatic.

These differences of opinion range, therefore, from one case where T. has changed my mind (sbcd -

though the vocalization is still uncertain), through cases where one must objectively admit that either vocalization or yet another is plausible (e.g., hnn), through cases where the comparative and internal data seem to indicate different solutions and either solution is more or less arbitrary on the basis of present data ( e . g ., ybcr ), through cases where T. assumes the existence of a morpheme for which there is no direct evidence ( e . g., the 'absolute' case vowel /-a/), through cases where the comparative evidence in my opinion definitely favors a solution that he does not prefer ( e . g., 3 m. s. suffix /-hu/), to two cases where T.'s vocalizations do not square with his own clearly stated rule (the length of the stem vowel in qlt and ttb). It is thus abundantly clear that a certain degree of subjec- tivity goes into the vocalization of Ugaritic, i. e ., some practitioners of the art will give priority to certain data that others will rank lower. T.'s specialty is Compara- tive Semitics and in his reconstructions of Ugaritic he sometimes assigns a greater weight to the comparative data, especially those from Akkadian, than do I. My comparative range is narrower than T.'s and I, in any case, believe that isoglosses with West Semitic are to be prioritized over those with East or South Semitic; hence my reconstructions tend to favor whatever internal data may exist over external data and West-Semitic comparative data over those from other branches of Semitic. But, these generalizations aside, it must be admitted that the data for reconstruction are often so few that any solution will be arbitrary to some degree.

The glossary is not limited to the texts in the chrestomathy nor to texts cited in the grammar. Rat- her, it contains a large proportion ("ein Großteil") of the attested vocabulary as well as all known Ugaritic nouns that are attested in syllabic script; loanwards are cited more rarely and proper nouns not at all. Vocali- zations are provided for most nouns and particles but not for all. The principle of citation is strictly alpha- betical, viz., nouns are not grouped under a root and verbal forms are sometimes cited alphabetically ( e . g ., qh , the imperative of LQH). The order of citation is a modified version of the modern West-European and English order ( e . g., h and h after h) that was first proposed in the dictionary of Ugaritic by G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartín (1996). 23 I have stated in my

reviews of the first fascicle of the dictionary24 and of Ugaritische Grammatik 25 my bafflement at how a modern construct can have been preferred over the order that was used by the Ugaritians themselves. The Ugaritian order has been well known for half a century and the absence of any cultural bias in its use in modern scholarship ( e . g. many scholars have used a modification of the Hebrew order while del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín favor the Western-European order) and of any arbitrariness in order (various other orders have been proposed based on linguistic criteria) have made it the choice of the present epigraphic team of the Mission de Ras Shamra since its first publications (see RSO IV [1988], VII [1991], XII [2000], and XIV [2001]). I can only lament that this particular form of cultural imperialism has infested Ugaritic studies in these basic - and otherwise highly recommendable - works for the study of the language.

It is impracticable here to express my agreements or disagreements with the individual entries in the glossary, with vocalizations, or with glosses. This has already been done for the more important cases in my review of the reference grammar. I might, however, observe that the first word may be incorrectly vocalized (the case vowel of àb , 'father', may have been long, /*ab ü/ or ̂ abû/, rather than ̂abu / as indicated here and in § 51.3 - for details, see my review of Ugaritische Grammatik , remarks on p. 51 [§ 21.341.21a], etc., p. 175 [§ 33.215.22], etc., and pp. 248-49 [§51.3]) while /zurwu/, 'resin', is almost certainly correct for zrw, the last word in the glossary, because that vocalization is established by syllabic writings. It is not without irony that T. takes these two words as both /qatl/-base nouns from roots with /w/ as the third root consonant26 in spite of the fact that they behave very differently in the West-Semitic languages, àb loses the third consonant but shows a long case vowel; zrw is the Ugaritic form of this word while the proto-Hebrew form was /zury-/ (i. e ., the attested form is frP, rather than *sörüw). As far as Ugaritic is concerned, one might posit that the word 'father' was in fact /qatal/ (^abawu/ > /)abû/) while the word for 'resin' was indeed /qatl/. This hypothesis is borne out for ah , at least, by the feminine forms yãhõt, 'sister', and hãmõt , 'mother-in-law (on husband's side)', in Hebrew (with corresponding forms in other Semitic languages), for the loi appears before the gender marker in these words and must, therefore, have arisen from contraction of radical elements rather than from an originally

23) In the index to his Mitos y leyendas de Canaan (1981), del Olmo Lete used the modified Hebrew order; there was no index of Ugaritic words in his La religion cananea (1992).

24) JNES 59 (2000) 61. 25) In the reference grammar, that order appears to have

been adopted only relatively late in its production and the presentation there is not, therefore, consistent.

26) See Ugaritische Grammatik , pp. 248-49 (§51.3), p. 253 (§ 51.41a), and p. 338 (§ 55.12).



Rezensionen 417

long case vowel, as is theoretically possible for the masculine form of these words. The original form of the word for 'sister' was plausibly ̂ ahawatu/ going to ̂ ahâtu/ by inter-vocalic elision of the /w/; the latter form is well attested in Late Bronze Age personal names, e. g., yAhâtu-milki at Ugarit.

Chicago. Dennis Pardee.

Josef Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik. 1056 pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2000 ( Alter Orient und Altes Testament 273). € 100,21.

The disadvantage of a dead language attested by a small corpus of texts is that it leaves many lacunae in our knowledge of text-dependent aspects of the culture that are revealed by that language; the advantage for the grammarian is that it permits an exhaustive inclu- sion of the data in a grammatical description. This T. has done in the volume under review, which explains why one of the more poorly attested of the ancient Near-Eastern languages now boasts one of the thickest grammars. The disadvantageous side for the grammarian wishing to exploit these data exhaustively is that, for many grammatical categories, they are very few, all too often a single datum or none at all. The danger is always lurking, therefore, that any given datum is for one reason or another atypical or misunderstood and that a rule be proposed that in fact has no basis.

In a relatively brief time, the author has established himself as one of the principal authorities on the ancient Semitic languages, with forty-nine titles cited under his name in the bibliography, dated from 1989 to 2000, including three important monographs. Though he is familiar with the major Semitic languages, indeed has published on several of them, he has concen- trated on the Northwest Semitic languages and particularly on Ugaritic. His grammatical work has always

been of the highest order and all who will in the future have reason to investigate any aspect of Ugaritic grammar will do well to start here. I have one general caveat to state and that has nothing to do with the author's abilities but reflects rather a choice and one with which I have no dispute: in order to write so exhaustive a grammar, the author must have taken a decision on the meaning of every text in the corpus and on every word in every text from which data are cited, something that even someone so obviously bril- liant as T. cannot expect to have done so early in his career with equal thoroughness everywhere. This hu- man limitation is exacerbated by the current state of Ugaritic epigraphy, which I have described on various occasions:1 the simple fact that many of the Ugaritic texts still await an authoritative publication based on autopsy makes it certain that any study such as this one will include faulty data. That does not mean, however, as I said in my first description of the situation, that philological study "must grind to a halt"2 while the time-consuming work of re-editing the texts goes on. It only means that the author and his readers must not expect perfection. In all honesty, the epigraphic improvements that remain to be made will in all likelihood not affect T.'s understanding of any major aspect of Ugaritic grammar, but will have to do rather with moving pieces of data about and with filling in the picture. Thus I would have been the last to counsel T. to hold off publication of his work until the epigraphic picture were clearer. So thorough a status questionis was needed by all of us who work on Ugaritic, not least the epigraphers, for even the most basic epigraphic work must at times take into consider- ation both what is known epigraphically and the interpretations that these data have received. I would thus not disagree with T.'s assertion that a grammar such as this one is useful as a "Grundlage für eine fundierte Übersetzung der inhaltlich schwierigen Texte" (p. 6), though users must not forget that this grammar, like

l) See, for example, my review of the collection of Ugaritic texts by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit , Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU: Second , Enlarged Edition ) {Abhand- lungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas und Mesopotami- ens 8; Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 1995) in JSS 42 (1997) 132- 37, and my critique of some of T.'s epigraphic observations with regard to this collection of texts in AuOr 16 (1998) 85- 102. The 1995 collection will henceforth be abbreviated CAT; the first edition of this work, which dates to 1976 {Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit , Alter Orient und Altes Testament 24/1, Kevelaer, Butzon & Bercker, Neukirchen- Vluyn, Neukirchener Verlag), will be referred to here as KTU. T. cites Ugaritic texts only by the numbers assigned to them in KTU and in CAT. New-comers to Ugaritic studies should be aware that new texts were included in CAT; for example, in section 1, texts 162-176 are new in CAT. More- over, texts already included in KTU sometimes, though quite

rarely, have been assigned different line numbers in CAT; the most conspicuous case is perhaps RS 24.251+, of which the recto I verso orientation was reversed in CAT - hence a reader checking a reference to "1.107" will not find the text in the same place in KTU as in CAT. For these reasons, I prefer to cite texts that appeared in KTU as "KTU ...," those that were added in CAT as "CAT ...," and to use "KTU/CAT" when a point is being made with regard to a feature shared by the two editions. T.'s convention is to cite texts by number only, with the primary reference being to CAT; if he wishes specifically to make a point regarding one edition or the other, he cites them as "KTU1" and "KTU2"; if he wishes to express explicitly that a reading appears in both editions, he cites them as "KTU1/2."

2) "New Readings in the Letters of czn bn byy ," in Vorträge , gehalten auf der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Wien , 6.-10. Juli , 1981, AfO Beiheft 19 (1982) 39-53, esp. p. 53 note 22.

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