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Ритм хеттской поэзии: позиция глагола в «Песни об Улликумми»
Word order in Hittite epic “Song of Ullikummi” (a Hurrite myth of Kumarbi Cycle) and some other poetic texts significantly differs from the neutral one in the vast majority of Hittite sentences, — first, in the frequency of postverbal position, keeping in mind that standard unmarked word order in Hittite clause is strict SOV with the final verb. The frequency of NP after the verb in “Song of Ullikummi” is statistically significant: on our corpus data it shows around 9%, comparing to around 2% in non-poetic texts (letters and instructions), p-value < 0.0001. The cases of postverbal NP in “Song of Ullikummi” demonstrate consistency, allowing to formulate basic principles of organization for these sentences, including three components (focus, right dislocation, clitic doubling), at least two of which can be found in every such clause. The paper discusses a hypothesis that the main function of this marked word order in these cases is to underline the initial and the final boundaries of the clause, i.e. the start and the ending of a verse. This would help to support the rhythm of recitation of a poetic text.