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Sylvie Vanséveren : Nisili. Manuel de langue Hittite. Volume II. Le système verbal hittite . (Lettres Orientales et Classiques 19.) x, 251 pp. Leuven : Peeters , 2014. [euro]34. ISBN 978 90 429 3018 6 .
Reviews: The ancient Near East
Hittite verbal morphology is one of the most complex parts of the Hittite grammar owing to the diversity of inflectional types and ongoing changes throughout the attested period of Hittite. The classic description was provided by N. Oettinger, Die Stammbildung des hethitischen Verbums (Nuremberg, 1979, reprinted Dresden, 2002 with slight revisions), which was superseded only by A. Kloekhorst's treatment (Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon, Leiden, 2008, esp. pp. 117-52). Unfortunately, the latter description was published too late to be incorporated into the standard Hittite grammar (H.A. Hoffner and H.C. Melchert, A Grammar of the Hittite Language I. Reference Grammar, Winona Lake, 2008), which led to the current, confusing, situation where the best synchronic description is not to be found in the most detailed grammar, but in an etymological dictionary. Thus the author's project, a thorough Hittite grammar in French, the second part of which is reviewed here, provides an excellent opportunity to overcome this problem.
The preface and abbreviations are followed by a short description of the categories of the Hittite verb and its Indo-European background (chapter 1, pp. 1-12), as well as a synchronic description of...