Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

comparing grammatical features of languages genetically different from one another or
related only in a distant way).
In the bilingual text, the Hittite Iterative forms of the Present Indicative are used as
translational equivalents of the Hurrian Voluntative: [kad-ul-li] = Hittite [mem-i-Íki-mi]
“I shall speak about more things”. 414 A corresponding Hittite form of the Voluntative
(or 1st Person Singular of the Imperative) of mema- (-ßi conjugation) in the Middle
Hittite period is not yet attested (the form me-ma-al-lu “I will speak” occurs twice in the
prayer of King Muwatali 415 ); few forms of the -ßi conjugation like ak-kal-lu “I will die”
belong to Middle Hittite. But according to Benveniste’s suggestion, accepted by several
other scholars, the formation of the Voluntative of the -mi conjugation of the type eÍ-li-
t/eÍ-lu-t “I will be” (with a parallel form aÍ-all-u) might be very archaic, since it can
correspond to Old Lithuanian esle, Slavic *jestÈ + *li, Tocharian B nasäl < *no-es-l-, A
nesalle; the protoform for Balto-Slavic is reconstucted as a combination of a particle
(Old Prussian lai) with a verbal form. 416 In that case, one may simultaneously see in
these forms an original Hittite form in -l-u-t (the second element in the agglutinative
chain being the usual morph of the Imperative, the third one a mediopassive ending
probably < *-dh-) and a form similar to the Hurrian voluntative in -li. The -l- (also
found in Hittite in isolated modal forms like dalug-nu-la “that should be made longer”
and in some nominalizations based on verbs) can be compared to the Lydian infinitive
in -l and past tense 3rd Person ending -l 417 , thus presenting an isogloss uniting
414 On the meaning of the form in archaic texts: Dressler 1968, 218, 225; Hoffner and Güterbock 1986, 256-
263.
415 KUB XXX 14 III 74; VI 46 IV 42; Hoffner and Güterbock 1986, 254; mamallu “I will speak” belongs to
Neo-Hittite when the verb had shifted to another class, cf. tar-aß-ßa-al-lu “I will overcome”, K Bo
XII 58 + Vs. 5; the vocalism in Íe-ig-gal-lu “I will know”, which should have had old a < *o in the
Singular, also points to a later date; cf. secondary Neo-Hittite ú-wi5-el-lu-ut “I will see”, peÍgellu “I
will give”, KUB XXX 14 + III 66, coexisting with ú-wa-al-lu “I will see”, uÍgallu “I will see”, peÍgallu
‘I will give”. On the chronology of the forms: Oettinger 1979, 45, 54, 83, 221, 486-487, 200; Melchert 1994,
157.
416 Toporov 1984, 418-436, with detailed documentation.
417 Rosenkranz 1978, 134; Meriggi 1980, 346, §217-219; Melchert 1994, 341-342, 363, 379 (with further
references). According to Illich-Svitych 1976, 20-21 (N 253), this type of verbal adjective can be traced