Document-level phenomena

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Article

In the domain of grapholectal codes, we employ the notion of “document-level” phenomenon to refer to the microphenomenic, non systematic phenomena, that belong to the individual practice of a scribe or of a school of scribes. Document-level phenomena do not necessarily reflect a change in the shared semantic code.

Example

In the Hittite scribal tradition, the pseudo-Sumerographic writing of the name of the Assyrian plant sahlû is the regular Old Babylonian ZA₃.AH.LI (with a generic meaning “cress”). However, in a few texts, generally pertaining to medicine and pharmacology (KUB 37.1 and KUB 37.122), the standard Mesopotamian variant ZA₃.HI.LI is preferred (cf. Giusfredi 2012, Giusfredi and Pisaniello 2019). In light of this, the use of the Mesopotamian variant is a document-level feature that may represent a grapholectal variant within a single scribal school. The phenomenon is not systematic and does not reflect a single shared grapholect, as a third text from the same group of documents (KUB 29.58, Meier 1939) patterns with the Hittite tradition as regards the writing ZA₃.AH.LI, but selects an atypical variant of NUMUN₂, which is shared by KUB 37.122 as well.

References

Giusfredi, F. 2012. KUB 37, 1: an Akkadian Medical Text from Boğazköy. Altorientalische Forschungen 39 (2012), pp. 49-63; Giusfredi, F. and Pisaniello, V. 2019. KUB 37.122: A MESOPOTAMIAN LEXICAL LIST? Vicino Oriente 23, 65-80; Meier, G. 1939. Ein akkadisches Heilungsritual aus Boğazköy. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 45 (1939), pp. 195-215.