The Hittite Adjective from comparative perspective

This paper offers a text-based, quantitative analysis of the quality modifier construction (i.e. the “adjective”) in Hittite. A sample of texts is selected, from which we gather all quality modifiers (131 types for 922 tokens); we analyse their morphemic structure and divide them into 7 different construction types (i.e., simple adjectives, prepositional adjectives, denominative adjectives, deverbal adjectives, participles, prefixed adjectives and compound adjectives); and the frequency of each construction type is established, distinguishing type and token frequency. From our analysis, it emerges that simple and deverbal adjectives in a broader sense (i.e. deverbal adjectives proper and participles) show a similar frequency in Hittite (respectively 48.5% and 42.0%). The paper concludes with some reflections on the significance of the Hittite data for the reconstruction of the adjective class in PIE.