Conference Presentations by Xander Vertegaal
The spelling, phonetics and phonology of the Cuneiform Luwian dental stops , 2019
This paper investigates the use of the cuneiform signs TA and DA to spell dental obstruents in ou... more This paper investigates the use of the cuneiform signs TA and DA to spell dental obstruents in our Cuneiform Luwian corpus. It is argued that there are several spelling patterns, distributed across phonetic environments, and that this distribution is indicative of a phonetic contrast. Overall, the observed spelling patterns match those found in Hittite (Kloekhorst 2010, 2013, fthc.), and the differences between Hittite and Cuneiform Luwian are distributed themselves. One such difference involves the spelling of the intervocalic lenis stops in Cuneiform Luwian, suggesting that they were voiceless rather than voiced. This casts new light on the reconstruction of the Proto-Anatolian lenis stops.
Accompanying slides of a presentation delivered at the 10th International Congress of Hittitology... more Accompanying slides of a presentation delivered at the 10th International Congress of Hittitology (28 Aug. - 1 Sep.) at the University of Chicago.
Conference talk held at the 4th "Luwic Dialects: Inheritance and Diffusion" workshop in Barcelona... more Conference talk held at the 4th "Luwic Dialects: Inheritance and Diffusion" workshop in Barcelona on March 17th, 2017.
Papers by Xander Vertegaal
van Sluis, Aljoša ('[x j aeˈɫo]') Šorgo, and Andrew Wigman. Many thanks for the lunches, the coff... more van Sluis, Aljoša ('[x j aeˈɫo]') Šorgo, and Andrew Wigman. Many thanks for the lunches, the coffees, the discussions and the sparring sessions. Special thanks are due to Stefan Norbruis, my partner in crime, whose critical mind and ideas have helped increase the accuracy of many of this thesis' claims beyond what I would have been capable of achieving myself. These four years have been wonderful, not in the last place because of the good company, great humour and excellent food provided by dear Indo-Europeanist friends from outside of Leiden. Their friendship is invaluable to me. I can only mention a few here:
Hungarian Assyriological review, 2021
This paper offers a new perspective on the phoneticisation of the Luwian hieroglyphic writing sys... more This paper offers a new perspective on the phoneticisation of the Luwian hieroglyphic writing system. It investigates to what extent we can determine the time frame in which they acquired their syllabographic values by relating them to key phonological and morphological changes in the Luwian language. Several hieroglyphic signs plausibly developed phonetic readings before particular linguistic developments took place, which suggests that the phoneticisation process took place over a long time and may have started centuries before the first texts (perhaps even in Proto-Luwic times), continuing gradually and continuously until the writing system was abandoned in the 7 th century BCE.
Altorientalische Forschungen, Dec 1, 2017
This article explores the use of <CV-V> sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It... more This article explores the use of <CV-V> sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It is argued that the vowel signs in these sequences are frequently used as space-fillers in almost all texts dateable to the Iron Age. Space-filling explains the presence of many vowel signs commonly taken as linguistically void, and a new transliteration method is proposed to mark these space-fillers in a uniform way. It is also shown that many vowel signs cannot have been used as space-fillers. Rather, these signs are linguistically significant and bound to express a phonetic feature. On a methodological level, this article considers how we can meaningfully distinguish space-fillers from linguistically real plene writing, as both were not marked differently by the scribes. The last section examines space-fillers in greater detail: their chronological distribution and vowel quality are treated, as are some conspicuous and rare types of space-filling.
Bibliotheca Orientalis, Aug 31, 2017
Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic
Transactions of the Philological Society, Feb 5, 2020
This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly acce... more This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly accepted sound laws that lengthened both consonants and vowels in the Luwic languages. It is proposed that both developments take similar inputs and ultimately yield the same effect: neutralisation of the syllable weight opposition in accented (stressed) syllables. This development is in line with a tendency already observable in Proto-Anatolian, according to which unstressed syllables were made light, while stressed syllables were made heavy. Thus, it is argued, in the prehistory of the Luwic languages, vocalic length, consonantal length and syllable weight in general became increasingly dependent to the position of the stress and therefore became phonologically neutralised to a certain extent. 1 In this paper, I will make frequent use of the labels 'Hieroglyphic Luwian' and 'Cuneiform Luwian' to refer to two "[corpora] of linguistic data recorded using a particular writing system" (as per Yakubovich 2010: 70), without implying that the distinction in writing system marks an important dialectal divide. The phonetic changes that are at the heart of this paper seem to have been completed in Proto-Luwian times already. 2 For this reason, I will use geminates (/tt/) and singletons (/t/) contrastively in my phonological representation of Hittite, Cuneiform Luwian and Palaic forms, e.g. Hitt. mi-li-it-ta-a s /milittas/ 'honey' (gen.sg.) vs. CLuw. ma-al-li-taa-ti /mallit ati/ 'id.' (abl.-ins.).
Historische Sprachforschung, Oct 12, 2020
Hungarian Assyriological Review
This paper offers a new perspective on the phoneticisation of the Luwian hieroglyphic writing sys... more This paper offers a new perspective on the phoneticisation of the Luwian hieroglyphic writing system. It investigates to what extent we can determine the time frame in which they acquired their syllabographic values by relating them to key phonological and morphological changes in the Luwian language. Several hieroglyphic signs plausibly developed phonetic readings before particular linguistic developments took place, which suggests that the phoneticisation process took place over a long time and may have started centuries before the first texts (perhaps even in Proto-Luwic times), continuing gradually and continuously until the writing system was abandoned in the 7 th century BCE.
LOT, Nov 12, 2020
van Sluis, Aljoša ('[x j aeˈɫo]') Šorgo, and Andrew Wigman. Many thanks for the lunches, the coff... more van Sluis, Aljoša ('[x j aeˈɫo]') Šorgo, and Andrew Wigman. Many thanks for the lunches, the coffees, the discussions and the sparring sessions. Special thanks are due to Stefan Norbruis, my partner in crime, whose critical mind and ideas have helped increase the accuracy of many of this thesis' claims beyond what I would have been capable of achieving myself. These four years have been wonderful, not in the last place because of the good company, great humour and excellent food provided by dear Indo-Europeanist friends from outside of Leiden. Their friendship is invaluable to me. I can only mention a few here:
Altorientalische Forschungen, 2017
This article explores the use of <CV-V> sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It... more This article explores the use of <CV-V> sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It is argued that the vowel signs in these sequences are frequently used as space-fillers in almost all texts dateable to the Iron Age. Space-filling explains the presence of many vowel signs commonly taken as linguistically void, and a new transliteration method is proposed to mark these space-fillers in a uniform way. It is also shown that many vowel signs cannot have been used as space-fillers. Rather, these signs are linguistically significant and bound to express a phonetic feature. On a methodological level, this article considers how we can meaningfully distinguish space-fillers from linguistically real plene writing, as both were not marked differently by the scribes. The last section examines space-fillers in greater detail: their chronological distribution and vowel quality are treated, as are some conspicuous and rare types of space-filling.
Kadmos, 2019
This paper investigates the distribution and use of the Hieroglyphic Luwian signs □ (L 100) and □... more This paper investigates the distribution and use of the Hieroglyphic Luwian signs □ (L 100) and □ (L 29), expanding on and reacting to Rieken 2010. It appears and are used contrastively not only in a select subset of texts from the Karkamiš region, but in large parts of the Hieroglyphic Luwian corpus in general. Word-internally, appears to be used wherever we expect to find a short stop (either voiced or voiceless), while is used for long (fortis) stops. This suggests that consonantal length was at least a phonetic feature in Hieroglyphic Luwian.
Indogermanische Forschungen, 2018
In Vertegaal 2017, it was argued that plene spellings(〈CV-V〉 sign sequences) in Hieroglyphic Luwi... more In Vertegaal 2017, it was argued that plene spellings(〈CV-V〉 sign sequences) in Hieroglyphic Luwian can be divided into two types: space-fillers on the one hand, and non-fillers on the other. This article focuses on plene spellings of the latter kind, as attested in texts from the Iron Age (CHLI). It is demonstrated that these non-filler plene writings are non-randomly distributed across morphemes and lexemes, indicating that this mode of spelling marks a phonetic feature. Using secure etymologies and analyses, it is proposed that non-filler (“linguistically real”) plene spellings mark the presence of long vowels or disyllabic sequences. The validity of this hypothesis is subsequently tested against less secure and doubtful etymologies as well as counterexamples. Finally, it is concluded that the hypothesis holds, thereby providing, for the first time, direct evidence for the writing of vowel length in Hieroglyphic Luwian.
Transactions of the Philological Society, 2020
This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly acce... more This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly accepted sound laws that lengthened both consonants and vowels in the Luwic languages. It is proposed that both developments take similar inputs and ultimately yield the same effect: neutralisation of the syllable weight opposition in accented (stressed) syllables. This development is in line with a tendency already observable in Proto-Anatolian, according to which unstressed syllables were made light, while stressed syllables were made heavy. Thus, it is argued, in the prehistory of the Luwic languages, vocalic length, consonantal length and syllable weight in general became increasingly dependent to the position of the stress and therefore became phonologically neutralised to a certain extent. 1 In this paper, I will make frequent use of the labels 'Hieroglyphic Luwian' and 'Cuneiform Luwian' to refer to two "[corpora] of linguistic data recorded using a particular writing system" (as per Yakubovich 2010: 70), without implying that the distinction in writing system marks an important dialectal divide. The phonetic changes that are at the heart of this paper seem to have been completed in Proto-Luwian times already. 2 For this reason, I will use geminates (/tt/) and singletons (/t/) contrastively in my phonological representation of Hittite, Cuneiform Luwian and Palaic forms, e.g. Hitt. mi-li-it-ta-a s /milittas/ 'honey' (gen.sg.) vs. CLuw. ma-al-li-taa-ti /mallit ati/ 'id.' (abl.-ins.).
Transactions of the Philological Society (Volume 118, Issue 2), 2020
This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly acce... more This paper offers a new perspective on Cop's Law and Open Syllable Lengthening, two commonly accepted sound laws that lengthened both consonants and vowels in the Luwic languages. It is proposed that both developments take similar inputs and ultimately yield the same effect: neutralisation of the syllable weight opposition in accented (stressed) syllables. This development is in line with a tendency already observable in Proto-Anatolian, according to which unstressed syllables were made light, while stressed syllables were made heavy. Thus, it is argued, in the prehistory of the Luwic languages, vocalic length, consonantal length and syllable weight in general became increasingly dependent to the position of the stress and therefore became phonologically neutralised to a certain extent.
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Conference Presentations by Xander Vertegaal
Papers by Xander Vertegaal