Some evidence for syntactic stress in Hittite

In Anatolian Studies, Vol. XIII, 1963, there appeared I. McNeill's “The Metre of the Hittite Epic”, known here as MHE. Some implications of MHE are explored below with regard to sentence stress in Hittite.In MHE Mr. McNeill shows that the Hittite Song of Ullikummi has a stress-based metre, and that it is built up of verses, each with four stresses and divided into two equal cola. This system accords with those of the Mesopotamian antecedents of the Hittite epic-mythological genre. MHE's prime interest is in the parallels between the Hittite and the Homeric epic forms, and in particular in the use made by each of set formulae such as are suited to oral composition.A large part of MHE explores the variations found in the Hittite formulae. A basic formula is exemplified by Aas siunas memiskiwan dais “Ea began to speak to the gods”. Each word is stressed, and the clause fills a whole verse.