Hittite Clause Architecture

Résumé 0

The paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of Hittite clause structure.* The picture that emerges is quite different from both the view of Hittite clause architecture as codified in (Hoffner, Melchert 2008) and as documented in the parallel line of research (Luraghi 1990; 2012; forthcoming).The paper focuses on two key features of Hittite clause architecture: ( a) preverbal vs. clause initial vs. clause second positions; ( b) verb’s positions in the clause, although in-depth study of these aspects involves examination of virtually every significant feature of Hittite syntax.Preverbal position is constituted by wh-words, subordinators, negation markers, negative, indefinite and relative pronouns** as well as some adverbs, only part of these constituents can alternatively be clause initial or second. Contrastive focus is normally preverbal, contrastive topic is clause initial. Two focus positions are distinguished in a Hittite clause*** –high (subjects and objects) and low (adverbs, adverbials). Wh-words, subordinators and relative/indefinite pronouns can also be optionally postverbal. It is significant that only lower focus can be postverbal, never high focus, even though in the canonical word order both high and low focus is preverbal. No information structure difference is detectible between the preverbal and postverbal positions.It is shown that non-canonical positions of the verb can be described by two movements to the left from the canonical clause-final position: ( a) to the clause-internal position which follows subject and object, both topical and focal, on the one hand, and precedes what is in the canonical word order the preverbal position,**** on the other, producing V-wh/Neg/Rel, SO- V-wh/Neg/Rel word orders; ( b) to the clause leftmost position, producing V-S-O word order. * V-wh/Neg/Rel-S-O or *wh/Neg/Rel- V-S-O word orders are not attested in my ‘diplomatic’ corpus.The last point raises an important question of sociolinguistics of the Hittite language, namely evidence for (idio)lects.