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The Anatolian “ergative”

Milan Lopuhaä1
October 17, 2017

0. Abstract
The Anatolian languages are unique among the Indo-European languages in having a suffix for neuter nouns in the
agent position, hereafter referred to as the agentive suffix. There exist several theories concerning the grammatical
analysis of this suffix (Melchert 2007). In this article I expand on research by Goedebuure (2013) by testing these
theories for all languages in which this construction is attested. It turns out that the agentive was originally a
personifying suffix *-ont-, a function still present in Old Hittite and Luwian. This suffix was grammaticalised into a
grammatical suffix already in Proto-Anatolian. This suffix could only occur in the common gender nominative. In Neo-
Hittite, the construction -ant-s/-ant-es was reanalysed as case endings -anza/-anteš of a new ergative case appearing
only in the neuter gender. A similar reanalysis was happening in Lycian. The suffix *-ont- was grammaticalised in order
to be able to form neuter agents, which was impossible in Proto-Indo-European. The non-Anatolian Indo-European
languages filled this gap by extending the function of the neutral subject/patient ending *-Ø and *-om to the agent
function. This shared innovation constitutes an argument in favour of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.

1. Introduction
One of the characteristic features of the Anatolian languages that sets them apart from the
other Indo-European languages is the fact that neuter nouns that are the subject of transitive
sentences (the Agent position) do not appear in their nominative/accusative form. Instead they
receive a suffix, for example Hittite sg. -anza, pl. -anteš, that is traditionally called the ergative
suffix. Such a terminology implicitly presupposes that Anatolian has an actual ergative case, as has
been argued for by Garrett (1990). This is, however, not the only theory on the place of the suffix -
anza/-anteš within the grammatical system of the Anatolian languages. Laroche (1962) and
Benveniste (1962) segment the suffixes into -anza = /-ant-s/ and -anteš = /-ant-es/, so that they
consist of a suffix -ant- and a common nominative ending -š/-eš. Thus, under this analysis, there
exists a suffix -ant- that transforms a neuter word into a common gender one. Patri (2007), on the
other hand, considers the ergative construction to be a special instance of the ablative case,2 which
in Hittite has an allomorph -anza. Since there is no concensus whether the “ergative” actually is a
separate case in the grammar of the Anatolian languages, in this article I will use the more neutral
term agentive3 and reserve the term ergative for a proper morphological case.
The discussion on the function of the Anatolian agentive is primarily a synchronic one. As
such, the function of the agentive is to be decided in every Anatolian language separately. The
discussion has mostly centered on Hittite, as this is the Anatolian language of which the most
textual material has survived. Recently Goedegebuure (2013) has given a diachronic description of
the agentive in Hittite. She shows that the agentive was a syntactic suffix -ant- in Middle Hittite,
whose nominative singular -anza and plural -anteš became fossilised in Neo-Hittite as endings of a
new ergative case.
The aim of this article is to expand upon Goedegebuure’s research by determining the
synchronic role of the agentive construction in the grammar of the Anatolian languages in which it

This paper is based on a term paper for a course on Hieroglyphic Luwian taught at Leiden University in 2013 by Alwin
Kloekhorst, to whom I am greatful for helpful commentary.
Garrett (1990) considers the ablative to be the origin of the ergative case in Anatolian, but in his analysis the ablative
and ergative are two separate cases in synchronic Anatolian.
Not to be confused, of course, with agentive nouns such as those formed by the suffix -er in English, e.g. walk → walker.
is attested, namely Hittite, Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian and Lycian.4 After this is
established, I will determine the Proto-Anatolian origins of these ergative constructions. Finally, I
will consider its implications for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and for the Indo-
Hittite hypothesis.

2. Proposals for analyses of the agentive

As was mentioned before there have been several proposals for the analysis of the
Anatolian agentive, all of which are neatly summarised by Melchert (2007). One can distinguish
between the following four analyses, presented here for the Hittite agentive suffix -anza/-anteš:

1. The semantical or derivational analysis. Under this analysis, proposed by Benveniste (1962),
the agentive suffix -anza/-anteš consists of a suffix -ant- and the nominative endings of the
common gender. The suffix -ant- is a derivational suffix that creates an animate noun from
an inanimate noun by means of personification. Hence, under this analysis, one cannot use
the word lingāi ‘oath’ in the agent position, and one has to resort to using lin iianteš ‘oath
gods’, which has a different but similar meaning.
2. The syntactical or inflectional analysis. This analysis, first proposed by Laroche (1962), also
considers the agentive suffix -anza/-anteš to consist of an inflectional suffix -ant- and the
nominative common gender endings. The difference between this analysis and the
previous one is that under this analysis the suffix -ant- does not have any semantic value.
Instead this analysis posits that neuter nouns, as a rule, cannot be syntactic agents. To
express a situation in which a neuter noun is the actor of an action with a patient, the
suffix -ant- must be used to change the morphological gender of the neuter noun into the
common gender, without affecting the semantics of the noun.
3. The ergative analysis. This analysis has been argued for by Garrett (1990). Under this
analysis the suffixes -anza and -anteš cannot be decomposed. Instead, these suffixes are
endings of a distinct morphological case, the ergative, which only occurs in neuter nouns.
4. The ablative analysis. This analysis, proposed by Patri (2007), considers the agentive suffix
-anza to be a special use of the ablative case. In Hittite, this case is indifferent to number. It
occurs mostly as -az, but it has an allomorph -anza. According to this analysis, neuter
nouns with the suffix -anteš are actually not agentives, but nominative plurals of derived

Before I try to fit the Anatolian data on these four analyses it is useful to discuss how one
can determine which of the analyses is correct for each Anatolian language; this will streamline the
discussion in the later sections. First, as was shown by Melchert (2007: 163-164), the ablative
analysis cannot hold in Hittite for a number of reasons. First, if the agentive construction is a
special use of the ablative case, one would expect some attestations of the agentive construction
with the more common ablative allomorph -az.5 Furthermore, the Hittite ablative is indifferent to
number, whereas the agentive construction has a distinct plural. Finally, if the agentive

Valério (2009) raises the possibility that Palaic fulāsinanza is a possible example of the agentive construction of a
Hattic loan fulāsina ‘bread’, although he prefers an interpretation fulāsin-ant-s ‘having bread’. At any rate the context is
too scarce to provide enough information about the role of the agentive in Palaic.
As Melchert notes, although there are some neuter nouns in which the agentive appears as -az, this is due to “nasal
reduction” and the suffix is underlyingly still /-ants/ rather than the ablative ending /-ats/.
construction featured an ablative case, one would expect accompanying adjectives and
demonstratives to be in the ablative case as well. As Melchert shows this does not happen in
Hittite; the agreement relations of the agentive construction will be discussed shortly.
In the Luwic languages the same reasons hold. In fact, in these languages the ablative
ending is different from the agentive suffix, as can be seen from the following table:

Agentive Ablative
Singular Plural
Hieroglyphic Luwian -antis ? -adi
Cuneiform Luwian -antiš -antinzi -adi
Lycian ? -ẽti -edi, -adi

Thus in all Anatolian languages the agentive construction does not feature the ablative
case. From this point onwards I will not include the ablative analysis in my discussion.
If the suffix -ant- is a semantical derivation, one expects its usage to be determined
semantically rather than syntactically. As such, one expects a derivation X-ant- derived from a
noun X to have a different meaning. Since their distribution is determined semantically, one also
expects the derived noun X-ant- to appear in other cases than the nominative, and one also
expects some instances of X in the agent position. Also, the usage of the suffix would not be
determined by morphological gender, but by some semantic property. This property would most
likely be inanimacy, as is argued for by Benveniste (1962). The correlation between the neuter
gender and semantic inanimacy is not perfect, however, and we would expect a semantic
derivation -ant- to appear on inanimate common gender words as well.
It should be noted that there is a semantic suffix -ant- in Hittite with many different uses,
such as a singulative use and an abundative use; these uses have been described by Josephson
(2004). It is a priori possible that the agentive is one of the functions of this suffix; this is especially
attractive since one of the functions of the suffix -ant- is to form agent nouns. It is very well
possible that this suffix is the historical origin of the agentive construction in Anatolian (Oettinger,
2001). Before investigating this possibility, however, it is necessary to determine the synchronic
function of the agentive contruction.
The remaining two hypotheses, that -anza reflects either an inflectional suffix -ant- or a
proper ergative ending, are harder to distinguish. In both of these cases the use of the agentive
construction would be determined by a grammatical rather than a semantic feature of the
sentence, namely the morphological gender of the agent. Also, under both of these analyses we
expect no difference in meaning between a noun X and the form X-ant- in the agentive
According to Melchert (2007) an inflectional suffix would be expected to appear in all
morphological cases. However, this reasoning is not fully correct; if a neuter agent is the
grammatical condition that defines the use of an inflectional suffix -ant-, we would not expect to
see it anywhere but in the nominative singular and plural. The comparison Melchert makes with
Latin dea ← deus is not fully applicable, since dea differs in meaning from deus. If the inflectional
suffix -ant- is only used in the agent position, it only appears in the common gender nominative
forms -anza and -anteš. As such, the difference between the syntactical analysis and the ergative
analysis cannot be seen from the forms in -anza and -anteš themselves.6
The difference between these two analyses, as is mentioned by Melchert, is that under the
ergative analysis the underlying noun X-ant- is of the common gender, whereas under the
syntactical analysis the underlying noun X is a neuter noun. Since a resumptive pronoun
corresponding to X bears the morphological gender of X, anaphoric reference can show us which
analysis is correct: if a noun in the agentive construction is resumed by a neuter pronoun, this
shows that the ergative analysis is correct, whereas if the resumptive pronoun is of the common
gender, the syntactical analysis is correct. Furthermore, if X governs an adjective Y, we expect Y to
appear in the common nominative if the suffix -anza is decomposable, and in the neuter ergative if
it is indecomposable. Of course, a priori the adjectival common nominative ending might be
identical to the neuter ergative ending, so formally an attestation of the form Y-aš X-anza does not
allow us to distinguish between the two analyses. If, however, we find a construction of the form Y-
anza X-anza, this is a clear argument in favour of the ergative analysis.

The following table gives an overview of the characteristics that allow us to distinguish
between analyses. In particular, we can see that if a difference in meaning between the base noun
and the noun in the agentive position is found, then it is certain that the derivational analysis is
correct in that example. The same holds if we find the agentive construction applied to a common
gender base noun. On the other hand, if a word in the agentive construction has a modifying
adjective with an ending that is not the common nominative ending, or if it is resumed by a neuter
pronoun, the ergative analysis must be correct. In the next sections I will discuss the languages in
which the agentive construction is attested one by one.

Derivational analysis Inflectional analysis Ergative analysis

Difference in meaning Yes No No
Gender of base noun Common/Neuter Neuter Neuter
Adjectives Common nominative Common nominative Neuter ergative
Resumptive pronouns Common Common Neuter

3. The agentive in Hittite

I start by summarising the results of Goedegebuure (2013) on the Hittite agentive
construction. She distinguishes between Old, Middle and Neo-Hittite. Her theory is as follows. In
Old Hittite the agentive construction is purely semantical, and can be seen as an instance of the
singulative use of the suffix -ant-. By the time of Middle Hittite, however, the agentive construction
had been grammaticalised and had lost its semantic value. In Middle Hittite, nouns in the agentive
construction are resumed by both neuter and common gender pronouns; as such it could be
ambiguously analysed as both an inflectional suffix and an ergative ending. The diachronical
development is clear: after the suffix was grammaticalised, it could only appear in its nominative
forms -anza and -anteš. The lack of inflection led to a reanalysis as case endings of the underlying
neuter word rather than a suffix which changed the morphological gender. We find the same
ambiguous analysis for the adjectives governed by nouns in the agentive construction. These either
Of course, one might argue that a language with a grammatical suffix which can only occur in the nominative case is
a very unstable scenario, and that the suffix would be reanalysed into a proper case soon. This, however, does not rule
out the possibility that -ant- is an inflectional suffix as a synchronic description.
have a common gender nominative ending -š or a neuter gender ergative ending -anza, also
confirming the fact that in Middle Hittite both the inflectional and the ergative analysis can be
applied. Here, the ergative adjective ending -anza was introduced from the nominal inflection.
Although the agentive construction in Middle Hittite is in development between a
grammatical suffix and a morphological case, by the time of Neo-Hittite, we only find neuter
resumptive pronouns and adjectives in -anza. This indicates that in Neo-Hittite the agentive
construction can unambiguously be analysed as an ergative case. Thus in Hittite we can clearly see
a development from a suffix with a semantic value to a grammatical suffix to the formation of a
new case. Still, however, the singulative suffix -ant- continued to exist in Neo-Hittite as a semantic
While Goedegebuure provides evidence for the stages of Middle and Neo-Hittite, she does
not give any evidence for her claim that in Old Hittite the agentive was only semantical. To
investigate this claim one would have to consider all Old Hittite attestations for the agentive. By
my knowledge, there are only two of such attestations, which we will discuss below.7

Example 1: KBo 25.107, 4-6

4. [a]p-pu-uz-zi kar-ta-x[...]
5. ták-ku=uš še-e-er [...]
6. [ap]-pu-uz-zi-an-za [...]
‘... the animal fat ...; if thus the animal fat ... them’

Although the text from Example 1 is too fragmentary to completely make out the meaning of the
sentence, we can see that we are dealing with a derived form of the neuter word appuzzi ‘animal
fat’. Although the verb of this sentence is lost, the fact that the accusative plural commune enclitic
pronoun =uš appears in this sentence shows that the sentence must be transitive. The question is
now whether there is a difference in meaning between appuzzianza in this text and the neuter
word appuzzi. The text VBoT 58 is a new script copy of this text. In this text we find the sentence (i
13-14) takku=aš t[innuzi] nu=ma=ašta andurza UZUap[p]uzziianza ḫarzi ‘If he paralyzes (the grains),
the fat will keep them within’ (Puhvel 1984: 103).8 In this sentence it is clear that there is no
semantic difference between appuzzi and appuzzianza. The same is probably true in Example 1,
since appuzzi in line 4 and appuzzianza in line 6 probably have the same referent. This means that
the suffix -anza has a grammatical role in this sentence, and as such either the syntactical or the
ergative analysis is correct in this instance. However, the context is too meagre to decide which of
the two is applicable.

A short discussion of the agentive construction in Old Hittite is found in Kammenhuber 1993, who remarked that the
argumentation of Laroche (1962) for the syntactical analysis of the agentive does not take the Old Hittite evidence into
account. She proposes that in Old Hittite the neuter noun italu ‘evil’ occurs in its nominative-accusative form as the
subject of both transitive and intransitive sentences. She gives the following example from KBo 18.151, rev. 7-8:
7. [i-t]a-lu[(- ) a-ra-i-iš ḫ]e-ẹn-ka-an ta-aš
8. [ ... ]x[ ... t]a-aš a-aš-šu ar-ḫa tu-uḫ-še-et
‘Evil arose; it took the plague; it took ...; it has cut off the good’
However, as remarked by Weitenberg (1987: 227), since the actual ending of the word is not attested, this fragment is
too indecisive to constitute evidence for the use of neuter nominative-accusative forms in the agent position in Old
Alwin Kloekhorst (p.c.) informs me that this interpretation (by Puhvel) cannot be correct, since the clitic =ma cannot
follow the sentence-initial particle nu-.
Example 2: KUB 36.106 rev. 5-7
5. [ ... tu]p-pí-aš ut-ta-a-ar šar-ri-et-[ta]
6. [ ... l] - - - -an-te-eš ap-pa-an-tu
7. [ ... ] n=a-aš ḫar-ak-tu
‘The word of the tablet is broken. The oaths must seize ... . He must perish.’

In Example 2 we find the agentive of the neuter word lingai- ‘oath’. To find out what the semantics
of lin iianteš is we have to consider the context. The preceding and following lines show that the
sentence in line 6 is part of a curse formula. This makes one suspect that lin iianteš means ‘oath
gods’ rather than ‘oaths’. It should be noted that we find NI-IŠ DINGIRMES ap-pa-an-t[u] ‘the oath
gods must seize’ earlier in the same text. Thus the most probable explanation is that the word
lin iianteš is semantically different from lingai-, so in this instance the evidence points toward the
semantical analysis.
Although the material is quite scarce, we see from Example 1 that it is probable that the
agentive suffix -ant- had a grammatical function in Old Hittite already. This invalidates the
suggestion of Goedegebuure (2013) that the suffix -ant- only had a semantical function. We cannot
see whether the agentive consists of a syntactical suffix -ant- or of an unanalysable ending -anza
from the Old Hittite evidence itself. However, since we see an ergative ending -anza develop from a
syntactical suffix -ant- from Middle to Neo-Hititte, the Old Hittite agentive is best to be interpreted
as a syntactic suffix -ant- as well.

4. The agentive in Cuneiform Luwian

There are several attestations of the agentive in Cuneiform Luwian, but the number is
small enough to treat every attestation in detail. In this section all Luwian forms are discussed that
are marked as an ergative by Melchert (1993); all texts are from Melchert (2001a).

Example 3: KUB 9.6+ ii 14-16

14. a-a-aš-ša=ti e-el-ḫa-a-du tap-pa-š -an-ti- š
15. - -am-ma-an-ti- š ta-a-i-in=ti-i=a-ta a-i-ia-ru
16. ma-al-li=ti-i=a-ta [a-]i-ia-ru

‘The sky and the earth must wash their mouths; they must become oil; they must become

Example 3 contains the agentives of the nouns tappaš- ‘sky’ and tiiamm(i)- ‘earth’. The
latter is a common gender word, as its nominative singular tiiammiš and its accusative singular
tiiammin have both been attested. This already shows that the suffix -ant- cannot have a
grammatical function and must be semantical. This can also be seen from the content of the
sentence: the two subjects have mouths and as such the words do not refer to the earth and the sky
themselves but to their personifications or deifications. Thus in this sentence the semantical
analysis is applicable.

Example 4: KUB 35.54 ii 49 - iii 5

ii 49. [š]a-a-an-du-u=a-ta pár-na-an-ti-in-zi
ii 50. [ḫ]u-u-um-ma-ti-iš ḫa-aš-ša-ni-it-ti-iš
ii 51. ḫ - -aḫ-ḫur-š -an-ti-in-zi ti-ia-am-mi-iš
iii 1. ta?-ru-ša-an-ti-iš ad[-du-ua-al-za ú-tar-ša]
iii 2. ḫal-li-iš-ša pa-ra-at-ta-an[-za]
iii 3. pu-ua-ti-il-za [n]a-nu-un-tar-ri-š[a]
iii 4. ir-ḫu-u-ua-aš-ša pa-ri-it-tar-u-ua-a-aš-š[a]
iii 5. u-la-an-ta-al-li-ia-an ḫu-it-u[a-li-ia-an]

‘The houses, the pediment, the hearth, the ḫuuaḫḫurša-s, the earth, statues, the evil word,
sickness, past (and) present impurity of irḫuua- (and) of animals, of the dead (and) of the
living must release them.’

Example 4 contains a rather large summation in which we find the two agentives
parnantinzi ‘houses’ and ḫuuaḫḫuršantinzi ‘statues’. Although all elements of this summation are
inanimate, the words that have the agentive construction are precisely those that are of the neuter
gender. In other words, the determining factor for the use of the agentive construction is
grammatical rather than semantical, which shows that in this sentence the agentive is either an
inflectional suffix or an ergative case ending.

Example 5: KUB 35.107+ ii 7-12

7. [ ... ]x kur-š -ú-na-an-ti-in-zi a-ri-in[-ta]
8. [ ... ]x a-ap-pu-ua-ni-in-zi a-a-ri-in-ta [...]
9. [tap-paš-š]a te-ra-a-im-ma-an-za dIŠKUR-za d[...]
10. [a-ri-]in -ta
11. [du-ú-]ua-az-za-an ti-ia-am-me-in DINGIRLUM RA-BU-Ú
12. [ti-]ia-am-ma-aš-ši-iš=ḫa dUTU-ua-za a-ri-in[-ta]

‘The islands restrained [...]; The āppuuaninzi restrained [...]; Tarḫunt and [...] restrained the
terāimman sky; the Great God and the Sun-god of the Earth restrained the dūuazza earth.’

In line ii 7 of Example 5 we find an agentive construction based on kuršauar ‘island’, a

neuter r/n-stem. Unfortunately, the context is unclear. The next line has a parallel construction,
but āppuuaninzi is a hapax. This presents us with two possibilities for the interpretation of these
lines: either the agentive construction in uršaunantinzi is grammatical, so that āppuuaninzi is
another landscape feature, or the agentive construction denotes a personification or deification, so
that appuuaninzi is another group of deities. The next lines give us the answer: here we see deities
as the subjects of the verb arinta. Therefore it is best to view uršaunantinzi and āppuuaninzi as
deities as well, so that uršaunantinzi ‘island deities’ would differ in meaning from kuršauar
‘island’, and as such the semantical analysis fits this sentence the best.

Example 6: KUB 35.107+ iii 15-18

15. [a=ua=t]i ÍD.ḪI.A-in-za ḫa-pí-in-ni-in-za KI.MIN a=ua=t[i]
16. [SAG.D]U-aš-ša-an-za IGI.ḪI.A-ua-aš-ša-an-za GIG-an-za na-a-ua [KI.MIN]
17. [ ... ] SAG.DU-aš-ši-iš IGI.ḪI.A-ua-aš-ši-iš GIG-an-te-eš17?
18. [ ... ]x tar-pí-i-ta ...

‘Ditto (= he made) for him the rivers and streams. [Ditto] for him not the illness of the
heart and the eye. [...] the illness of the head and the eye [...] tarpī-ed.’

Line iii 17 of Example 6 contains the agentive GIG-anteš. Although we cannot determine
the meaning of the sentence it occurs in, it is useful to compare it to lines iii 15 en iii 16 , where we
see the same noun with the neuter singular nominative/accusative ending -anza, as well as with
the same genitival adjectives. This makes it likely that the two instances of the word GIG have the
same referent, which implies that the suffix -ant- is here grammatical rather than semantical. It is
also important to point out that the two genitival adjectives SAG.DU-aššiš and IGI.ḪI.A-uaššiš have
the common nominative ending -iš rather than a hypothetical ergative ending -antiš. This makes it
likely that GIG-anteš is a common gender nominative noun rather than a neuter gender ergative
noun. We cannot formally rule out the latter, since it is possible that -iš is not only the common
nominative plural ending, but also the neuter ergative plural ending. As such, the syntactical
analysis fits this sentence, although the ergative analysis is possible as well.

Example 7: KUB 35.112, r.col. 3-7

3. [ ... ]x UZUNÍG.GIG-an-ti- š KI.MIN
4. [ ... ] KI.MIN
5. [ ... ]x-ua-an-ti-iš KI.MIN
6. [ ... ]x-ta-ti-ti-in-zi KI.MIN
7. [ ... ]x-ua-an-ti-iš
8. [ ... ḫal-l]i-na-i

‘[...] the liver ditto. [....] ditto. [... the x]-uant- ditto; [... the x-]tati-s ditto; [ ... the x]-uant- [...
is s]ick.’

Unfortunately the context of the text of Example 7, which has been badly preserved, tells
us almost nothing about the use of the agentive. The only other form of the word UZUNÍG.GIG-
‘liver’ that is attested is the ablative-instrumental UZUNÍG.GIG-ti. Since the word underlying the
sumerogram UZUNÍG.GIG is unknown, it is possible that -ant- is just a part of the stem, so we cannot
be sure that UZUNÍG.GIG-antiš is indeed an agentive construction. Even if it were, the context does
not tell us anything about its use: the only word preserved in the sentence is KI.MIN ‘ditto’, whose
referent is unknown. As such this attestation does not help us in distinguishing between the
different analyses of the agentive construction.

Example 8: KUB 35.65 iii 14-16

14. [ ... ]=pa=an a-ap-pa ḫa-ra-at-na-an-ti- š
15. [ ... ]x-ti-iš ni-iš
16. [ ... ma-a]l-ḫa-aš-ša-as-si-in EN-an
‘The [...] offense must not [...] him, the lord of the ritual.’

The word ḫaratnantiš ‘offense’ of Example 8 is otherwise also attested as a neuter r/n-stem
in the nom./ ḫāratarša and the ablative/instrumental ḫaratnati. The word [...]X-tiš is
probably congruent to ḫaratnantiš, and it could give us information about the congruence
relations of the agentive in Cuneiform Luwian. Unfortunately, only the very ambiguous part -tiš of
the ending has been preserved. This sentence therefore does not help us in determining the nature
of the agentive construction.

Example 9: KUB 35.86 ii 5

5. [ ... -]zi ḫar-da-an-ti-in-zi


Melchert glosses the word ḫardantinzi in Example 9 as an ergative because the ablative-
instrumental ḫartati has been attested as well. Given the lack of context, however, we cannot
determine whether this is an agentive construction, or simply another derivation by means of the
suffix -ant- (Melchert suggests ‘having ḫ.’).
From the examples it is clear that in Cuneiform Luwian the agentive suffix -ant- could be
found both as a semantic derivation, denoting personification or deification, and as an inflectional
suffix that has a purely grammatical function. In Example 6, the two nominal adjectives
corresponding to the agentive ending in the common nominative ending -iš point to the fact that
the agentive is a suffix rather than an ergative ending in Cuneiform Luwian. Although formally we
cannot rule out the possibility that this is the neuter ergative ending, we would expect the neuter
ergative adjectival ending to be -antiš, similar to the neuter ergative adjectival ending -anza of Neo-
Hittite. Therefore it is best to suppose that in Cuneiform Luwian there is no separate ergative case
and that both the semantical and the syntactical analyses occur.

5. The agentive in Hieroglyphic Luwian

Since the agentive construction in Cuneiform Luwian has the forms sg. -antiš, pl. -antinzi,
we expect the agentive to take the forms °a-ti-sa and °a-ti-zi in Hieroglyphic Luwian.
Unfortunately this is also what the nominative endings for common gender nouns in -a(n)ti- would
look like. In order to properly distinguish between these nouns and the agentive construction, I
will only consider nouns ending in °a-ti-sa and °a-ti-zi of which case forms of the noun in -Ca- have
been attested. However, in the material of Hawkins (2000) we find only two such attestations, both
in a single sentence in Example 10.

Example 10: BOYBEYPINARI 2 § 21

iii.B (“CAELUM”)ti-pa-sa-ti-sa=pa=wa/i=tu-u (“TERRA”)ta-
iii.C sà-REL+ra/i-ti-sa=ha || CAELUM-sa=ha TERRA-
iv.A REL+ra/i-sa=ha DEUS-ni-i-zi LIS-tà-ti || CUM-ni X-tu

‘The sky, the earth, and the gods of the sky and the earth must ... him with ligitation.’
In Example 10 the agentives (“CAELUM”)ti-pa-sa-ti-sa = tipasantis and (“TERRA”)ta-sà-
REL+ra/i-ti-s = taskwirantis are derived from the neuter noun tipas ‘sky’ and the common gender
noun taskwira/i- ‘earth’. Since in the latter case the agentive is made from a common gender noun,
it has to be a semantical derivation rather than a grammatical suffix, since the use of a grammatical
suffix would be triggered by the morphological neuter gender. This means that we should
understand the subject of this sentence as ‘The sky god, the earth god, and the gods inhabiting the
earth and the sky.’ We can conclude that -ant- is present in Hieroglyphic Luwian as a
personifying/deifying suffix. However, since this is the only attestation of the agentive in
Hieroglyphic Luwian, we should not regard the absence of evidence of a grammatical function of
the suffix -ant- as evidence of its absence.

6. The agentive in Lycian

The last language in which the agentive is attested is Lycian. There are two attestations in
the material by Melchert (2001b). Since these attestations are in two sentences that are very similar
in nature, it is best to treat them both at once. The sentences are given in Examples 11 and 12.

Example 11: TL 135

2 ... s=ene teseti : tubeiti : trmmili

‘And the Lycian oaths will strike him.’

Example 12: TL 149

10 ... s=ẽne : tesẽti : qãñti : trmmili ẽt#i [...]

‘And the Lycian oaths will seize him.’

These two formulations are remarkably parallel (note that nasalisation may drop in front of
n or t in Lycian). This makes it probable that the function of the agentive tesẽti is the same in both
sentences. The word is derived from tese/i- ‘oath’. This word is of neuter gender, since a neuter
accusative plural tasa is attested in the sentence (TL 36 4-6) s=e=i(j)=e ñta tãtẽ tasa miñta meleime
se(j)=aladahali ada ///- ‘He placed the council oaths inside for meleime and a fee of 3.5 ada’. In both
of the examples given the noun tese/i- has a suffix -ẽti that forms the agentive construction in
Lycian. As was the case in the other languages, there are three possible analyses to consider:
1. Semantical analysis. The suffix -ẽti consists of a semantical derivational suffix -ẽt- and the
common gender plural ending -i.
2. Syntactical analysis. The suffix -ẽti consists of an inflectional suffix -ẽt- and the common
gender plural ending -i.
3. Ergative analysis. The suffix -ẽti is the neuter plural ending of the ergative case.
In both sentences the noun tesẽti governs the adjective trmmili-. In Example 12 this
adjective has the same suffix -ẽti as a case ending. Under both the semantical analysis and the
syntactical analysis we would expect the form trmmili as in Example 11. This shows that the
adjective trmmili ẽti is in the ergative case rather than the nominative. The same must be true of
tesẽti, so in Example 12 the ergative analysis is correct. This again implies that tesẽti is semantically
identical to tese/i- ‘oath’, although one might suspect a personification in this context.
Since the two sentences are so identical, we can assume that the meanings are also similar.
Thus we may suppose that in Example 11 there is no semantical difference between tese/i- and
tesẽti. This rules out the semantical analysis. Unlike in Example 12, however, the adjective is
trmmili rather than trmmili ẽti, which has a common gender nominative plural ending. Hence the
word teseti is a common gender nominative as well, which means that the syntactical analysis is
We see that the agentive has two different analyses in Lycian. This could be a dialectal or
diachronical difference, but the amount of data is too small to draw any conclusions about the
distribution. At any rate, these two sentences show that a proper ergative case was present in
Lycian for at least some speakers, and that this ergative case derived from an inflectional suffix -ẽt-,
which may either still be present in the language as such, or traces of this origin can be seen in the
allomorph -i of the adjectival ergative plural ending -ẽti.

7. The agentive in Proto-Anatolian

Now that we have gathered all the synchronic information on the separate Anatolian
languages the historical development can be discussed. The central question of this section is what
the role of the agentive construction was in Proto-Anatolian. We will do this by considering the
proposals for possible analyses of section 2 and see how well they hold up for Proto-Anatolian. As
in the rest of this article we leave the ablative analysis aside.
The only Anatolian languages in which the agentive construction is a reflex of an actual
ergative case are Lycian and the later stages of Hittite. In Hittite this ergative case in -anza was
created as a reinterpretation of the nominative case of a suffix -ant- (Goedegebuure, 2013). The
Lycian ergative is attested only once, and we find a parallel construction with an inflectional suffix
-et-i (= -ẽt-i). The Lycian agentive is therefore structurally the same as the Middle Hittite agentive,
where the agentive can also be either an inflectional suffix or a morphological case. Thus we can
posit the same development for Lycian as we can for Hittite: the agentive was originally an
inflectional suffix that was reanalysed as a case ending within the history of the language. Thus in
both languages the ergative is an innovation, and as such we cannot reconstruct an ergative case
into Proto-Anatolian. Since in Proto-Anatolian the agentive is not an ergative case, we must
conclude that every instance of the agentive in Anatolian has developed from a Proto-Anatolian
suffix *-ont-. There are two grammatical roles of this suffix in the agentive construction present in
the Anatolian languages: there is a semantic suffix which denotes personification, which is present
in the earlier stages of Hittite, in Cuneiform Luwian and in Hieroglyphic Luwian, and a
grammatical suffix that obligatorily transfers neuter nouns to the common gender in the agent
position, which is present in Hittite, Cuneiform Luwian and Lycian. The semantic suffix can be
seen as a specific instance of the Hittite suffix -ant- discussed in section 2. This suffix has cognates
in other branches of Indo-European (Oettinger, 2001), so we may conclude that this suffix is old
and that there existed a semantic suffix *-ont- in Proto-Anatolian that had personification as one of
its functions. Furthermore, we can regard the syntactical suffix *-ont- as a degrammaticalisation of
the semantic suffix *-ont-. Such a development can be sketched in Lycian as follows (but of course
the same development must have taken place in all Anatolian languages). In a non-attested stage
of Lycian, the sentence sẽne tesẽti tu eiti trmmili must have meant ‘and the Lycian oaths
[personified as deities] will strike him.’ However, since the suffix *-ont- did not have a single, well-
defined semantic function in Anatolian (Josephson, 2004), the semantic component of the
derivation tesi/tesẽti was lost and the sentence simply came to mean ‘and the Lycian oaths will
strike him.’ As a result, the suffix now had a purely grammatical function, namely to be able to put
neuter nouns in the agent position by means of changing their grammatical gender. The
semantical suffix, in contrast, did not only change the morphological gender, but also the
semantical animacy of the noun.
By its nature this syntactic suffix could only occur in the nominative singular and plural. As
it could not be fully inflected, the suffix and the nominative ending together were prone to
reanalysis as a single morpheme. Since there was no longer a suffix to transfer the word to the
common gender, this single morpheme was considered a case ending of the neuter word. Since
this case was used precisely in the agent position, we can regard this as an ergative case. This
ergative case ending then spread to the adjectival system, which allowed for sentences such as sẽne
tesẽti ti trmmili ẽti ‘and the Lycian oaths will seize him.’
Since we find the syntactical suffix *-ont- in all Anatolian languages in which the agentive is
attested, we should reconstruct this grammatical suffix into Proto-Anatolian, which means that a
suffix *-ont- that could only be used syntactically must be of pre-Proto-Anatolian date. As
mentioned before the actual ergative case was a separate Hittite and Lycian development that
cannot be reconstructed into Proto-Anatolian. As such we see that Proto-Anatolian reflects the
analysis of the agentive as a syntactic suffix as put forth by Laroche (1962) for Hittite, and that all
the attested forms of the agentive in the separate Anatolian languages can be derived from this. In
particular, this means that Proto-Anatolian, like all Anatolian languages except for Lycian and
Neo-Hittite, did not allow neuter nouns in the agent position in sentences.

8. The Proto-Indo-European alignment system

Having reconstructed the alignment system for Proto-Anatolian, I can now turn towards
Proto-Indo-European. As is well known, all branches of Indo-European that retain the distinction
between neuter and masculine/feminine, except for Anatolian, display a partially accusative
alignment system in which masculine/feminine nouns have nominative and accusative forms, and
in which neuter gender nouns have a neutral declension, i.e. the Subject, Agent and Patient forms
are identical. On the other hand, in Proto-Anatolian, we have seen that neuter nouns could not
occur in the agent position, and a common gender noun had to be formed by means of the
syntactic suffix *-ont-. If the term Classical Indo-European (CIE) is used for the non-Anatolian
Indo-European languages, then one arrives at the reconstructions of the noun declensions below
(using o-stems as an example: the endings in C-stems are different, but the principle is the same).

Proto-Classical Indo-European Proto-Anatolian

Masculine Neuter Common Neuter
Agent *-os *-0m *-os ×
Subject *-os *-0m *-os *-on
Patiens *-0m *-0m *-on *-on

The question is now what we should reconstruct for Proto-Indo-European. This touches on the
Indo-Hittite hypothesis, which states that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from Proto-
Indo-European9. Thus, if Proto-CIE is the latest common ancestor of the CIE branches, then the
In the context of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis the ancestor of all non-Anatolian Indo-European languages is
occasionally called Proto-Indo-European, whereas the ancestor of PIE and Anatolian is called Proto-Indo-Hittite. These
terms correspond to my PCIE and PIE, respectively.
Indo-Hittite hypothesis states that PCIE is a later language than PIE; in other words, the non-
Anatolian branches of Indo-European would share common innovations. Hence if we find that
PCIE has undergone an innovation with regards to PIE, then this constitutes evidence for the Indo-
Hittite hypothesis.
The only point at which PCIE and PA differ is the ending for the neuter agent. A priori
there are two possible reconstructions for the neuter agent in PIE:
1. The PIE neuter agent ending was *-om as in PCIE, and Anatolian innovated in disallowing
neuter nouns in the agent position;
2. As in Proto-Anatolian, PIE did not allow neuter nouns in the agent position; CIE innovated
by introducing *-om for neuter agents.
In order to accept the first reconstruction there has to be a reason why Anatolian removed neuter
agents from its grammatical systems. This can be explained by the fact that most PIE inanimate
nouns were neuters. In practice, most inanimate nouns could only appear in the agent position via
the personifying suffix *-ont-, which existed in PIE already, for example in *gérh2-ont- ‘the old one’
(Gr. γέρων, Skt. járanta-), which is derived from *gérh2o- ‘old’ (Arm. cer) (Oettinger 2001: 302-303).
Thus, it is conceivable that the original way to express neuter agents was lost, and the personifying
suffix *-ont- was subsequently grammaticalised.
The problem with this explanation is that one would expect the loss of agents to happen in
semantically inanimate nouns, rather than in morphologically neuter nouns. Although there is a
strong correlation between inanimacy and the neuter gender, this correlation is not perfect even in
Proto-Indo-European. For example, *dʰéǵ-m- ‘earth’ (Gr. χθών, Skt. kṣám, Hitt. t an) was feminine
in Proto-Indo-European, but refers to an inanimate object; on the other hand pe u ‘cattle’ (Skt.
p u, Goth. faihu, Lat. pe ū) is neuter, but refers to something animate. Thus one would expect the
agent of all inanimate nouns to be lost, and one would expect the agentive construction to be
determined by animacy rather than by morphological gender. Example 4, however, shows that this
is clearly not the case.
On the other hand, if PIE did not allow for neuter agents, both the CIE and the Anatolian
situation can be explained. The lack of neuter agents would constitute a gap in the system of the
language. PCIE 'fixed' this gap by extending the neuter subject ending *-om to the agent, since the
subject and agent endings were equal in the masculine/feminine noun declension as well. Proto-
Anatolian, on the other hand, 'fixed' the gap by grammaticalising the personifying suffix *-ont-.
This reconstruction is considerably less problematic than assuming a PIE neuter agent ending *-
om, so the conclusion is that PIE did not allow for neuter agents. This was, of course, a very
unstable situation, which was quickly resolved both in CIE and in Proto-Anatolian. The fact that it
was resolved in different ways, however, shows that we have to reconstruct a gap in the system. We
thus arrive at the reconstruction offered in the table below.

Masculine Neuter Masculine Neuter Common Neuter
Agent *-os × *-os *-0m *-os ×
Subject *-os *-0m *-os *-0m *-os *-on
Patiens *-0m *-0m *-0m *-0m *-on *-on

One might wonder how PIE could express situations in which an object, referenced by a
neuter noun, is the agent of an action. The suffix *-ont- was not yet grammaticalised in PIE, since
the only evidence for its grammaticalisation is found in Anatolian. Thus PIE did not have either the
CIE or the Anatolian strategy for expressing neuter agents. One can imagine that such a situation
could be described by means of a mediopassive construction or by means of the semantic suffix *-
ont- (which would slightly alter the meaning of the sentence). PIE would then be somewhat similar
to the situation ascribed to Anatolian according to the semantical analysis of section 2. It is,
however, hard to ascertain the precise construction used, since such a construction would have
disappeared in both CIE and Anatolian.
Since PIE did not have the neuter agent ending *-om, the CIE languages share a common
innovation. Thus, the development of the CIE alignment system constitutes an argument in favour
of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis. However, one might argue that these developments could have
occured independently, as the absence of neuter agents constituted a gap in the PIE alignment
system. Extending the neuter subject ending *-om to the agent function is a straightforward way to
fix this gap. Thus, although this innovation points towards a period of common innovation of the
CIE languages and hence towards an early seperation of Anatolian from CIE, it by itself does not
conclusively prove it.

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