Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

Northern Anatolian with Tocharian (modal and past forms in -l), Armenian and Slavic
(perfect participle also used in the modal function as in Tocharian), possibly with Italo-
Celtic (particularly Umbrian) verbal forms in -l- as well. In Hurro-Urartian, the morph -
l- is the mark of several moods in contrast with the Indicative. In Akkadian, the main
difference (determined by the general prefixal tendency of Semitic, as opposed to the
suffixal one of Hurro-Urartian and Indo-European) lies in the position of the
Voluntative morph at the beginning of Akkadian forms like lukÍud “may I attain” and
lumßaΩ “I want to strike, I will strike”. Although the initial l-u- of the Babylonian
Precative, as opposed to l-i- and the prefixes a-(e-) and u-, may be described
synchronically as a prefix added to the stem of the past tense 418 , it is quite plausible,
from the point of view of the history of the language, that it originated in a particle like
Akkadian -lû (Old Babylonian dialect of Mari itti Íarrim lâ innamru “may he not meet
with the king”), Arabic li (li + jaqtula “so that he may kill”). 419 Thus, if the situation in
Semitic is to be compared to Indo-European dialects, the closest match will be found in
Balto-Slavic, where the origin of a verbal word form from a combination with a particle
is also evident. The other dialects (such as Hittite) as well as Hurro-Urartian show the
word form already made. But it seems possible to suppose that in all three groups of
languages, the initial stage was similar to that in Semitic and Balto-Slavic. Volition could
be expressed by a combination with the particle. When (due to some common features
of cultural and psychological development) the need for a form expressing this mode
arose, the three languages chose a similar way, perhaps borrowing the particle from
one of them from which the stimulus for this development had come. The borrowing
of particles is not unusual (as
back to Nostratic and in that case is an archaism in these Indo-European dialects. For dalugnula, see
further the author’s “Old Novgorodian Nevide…” (this volume) on parganula (with n.17).
418 Riemschneider 1973, 124, §18.8.
419 Gelb 1969, 100.