From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.Proceedings of the International Conference

on Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid 22–24 July 2010

edited bySTEVEN GARFINKLE and MANUEL MOLINA

Winona Lake, Indiana EISENBRAUNS

2013

Offprint From:

© 2013 by Eisenbrauns Inc. All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

www.eisenbrauns.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American Na-tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materi-als, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ♾ ™

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies (2010 : Madrid, Spain)From the 21st century B.C. to the 21st century A.D. : proceedings of the

International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies held in Madrid 22–24 July 2010 / edited by Steven J. Garfinkle and Manuel Molina.

pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and indexes.ISBN 978-1-57506-296-9 (hardback : alkaline paper)1. Ur (Extinct city)—Civilization—Congresses. 2. Sumerian language—

Texts—Congresses. 3. Babylonia—History—Congresses. 4. Iraq—History—To 634—Congresses. 5. Iraq—Antiquities—Congresses. I. Garfinkle, Steven J. II. Molina, Manuel. III. Title.

DS70.5.U7I56 2010935′.501—dc23 2013040752

vii

Contents Dedication ................................................................................................................... v Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ ix Foreword ................................................................................................................ xxiii

Language and Sources Ur III as a Linguistic Watershed .............................................................................. 3 MIGUEL CIVIL Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix: The Old Babylonian Evidence and Some Possible Third Millennium Precursors ............................ 19 J. CALE JOHNSON Hypotactic and Paratactic Complementation in Sumerian ditilla Texts ............. 49 FUMI KARAHASHI On the Location of Irisaĝrig .................................................................................... 59 MANUEL MOLINA The Archive of Iri-Saĝrig / Āl-Šarrākī .................................................................... 89 DAVID I. OWEN

Administration and Ideology Some Considerations on the Management of an Administrative Structure in Ur III Mesopotamia: The Case of mar-sa ............................... 105 SERGIO ALIVERNINI The Tenure of Provincial Governors: Some Observations ................................... 115 LANCE ALLRED Symbols and Bureaucratic Performances in the Ur III Administrative Sphere: An Interpretation Through Data Mining .......................................... 125 ALESSANDRO DI LUDOVICO The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power in Early Mesopotamia ...................................................................................... 153 STEVEN GARFINKLE Networks of Authority and Power in Ur III Times .............................................. 169 PIOTR MICHALOWSKI Prince Etel-pū-Dagān, Son of Šulgi ...................................................................... 207 PALMIRO NOTIZIA The Ur III Administration: Workers, Messengers, and Sons .............................. 221 FRANCO POMPONIO

viii Contents Šulgi Meets Stalin: Comparative Propaganda as a Tool of Mining the Šulgi Hymns for Historical Data .............................................................. 233 LUDĚK VACÍN

Economy and Society The Control of Copper and Bronze Objects in Umma During the Ur III Period ................................................................................. 251 FRANCO D’AGOSTINO AND FRANCESCA GORELLO Le Système Après-Récolte dans l’Hydro-Agriculture Mésopotamienne à la Fin du IIIe Millénaire avant notre Ère ....................... 267 JEAN-PIERRE GRÉGOIRE The Barbers of Iri-Saĝrig ....................................................................................... 301 ALEXANDRA KLEINERMAN Absence from Work in Ur III Umma: Reasons and Terminology ........................ 313 NATALIA KOSLOVA The Manufacture of a Statue of Nanaja: Mesopotamian Jewellery-Making Techniques at the End of the Third Millennium B.C. ................................... 333 PAOLA PAOLETTI Corvée Labor in Ur III Times ................................................................................ 347 PIOTR STEINKELLER Ikalla, Scribe of (Wool) Textiles and Linen .......................................................... 425 LORENZO VERDERAME AND GABRIELLA SPADA The Regular Offerings of Lambs and Kids for Deities and the é-uz-ga During the Reign of Šulgi: A Study of the mu-TÚM and zi -ga/ba-zi Texts from the Animal Center ........................................................................ 445 WU YUHONG AND LI XUEYAN

INDICES Personal Names ............................................................................................... 459 Divine Names ................................................................................................... 463 Toponyms ......................................................................................................... 464 Sumerian Words and Phrases ......................................................................... 467 Texts Quoted .................................................................................................... 470 ED IIIa-b Texts ............................................................................................ 470 Old Akkadian Texts ..................................................................................... 470 Lagaš II and Ur III Texts ............................................................................ 470 Old Babylonian Texts .................................................................................. 489 Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts ......................................................... 490 Law Collections ............................................................................................ 490 Literary Texts .............................................................................................. 490 Incantations and Medical Texts .................................................................. 491 Lexical Texts ................................................................................................ 492 Grammatical Texts ...................................................................................... 492

PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE .............................................................................. 493

19

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix: The Old Babylonian Evidence and

Some Possible Third Millennium Precursors*

J. Cale Johnson FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN

In contrast to traditional models of Sumerian grammar, in which phonological reconstruction and morphological analysis precede syntactic or pragmatic evalua-tions, I argue in my own work that syntactic and pragmatic analysis must precede or at least go hand in hand with morphological determinations and, more im-portantly, these syntactic and pragmatic analyses must be rooted in on-going dis-cussions within disciplinary linguistics. The use of well-defined grammatical cate-gories and the standard diagnostics for these categories that have been developed within disciplinary linguistics allows us to focus on the language specific evidence and philological argument that any real advance in our understanding of Sume-rian demands. Moreover, once a standard grammatical category has been identi-fied in Sumerian, we can leverage advances in comparative and theoretical syntax, hopefully leading to a fruitful dialogue between linguistic investigations within an Assyriological context and the theoretical work being carried out within discipli-nary linguistics. In a recent monograph (Johnson 2010), I looked at syntactic and pragmatic contexts in Sumerian in which so-called applicative constructions have some trac-tion and explanatory force: chiefly, contexts in which the usual syntax of locative constructions (primarily verbs formed with the *bí- prefix) is retasked to code a variety of non-locative phenomena such as unergative intransitives as well as causative and intensional predications. As part of that study, I also identified one particular use of the ventive prefix *im- in conjunction with the *ba-ni- prefix, yielding a prefix with the form *im-ma-ni- , that appears to function as a kind of evidential known as the mirative.1 The ubiquitous and occasionally rather meaningless use of the Sumerian ventive in */im-/ is further ameliorated with each specific use of the */im-/ that can be separated off from the undifferentiated mass of Sumerian “ventives” and provided with a specific morphosyntactic context

––––––––––––– * I would like to thank Mark Geller for a number of important comments on an early draft. I am

responsible for any remaining errors. 1. Johnson 2010: 159-188. The mirative is an evidential category indicating that the speaker

finds the situation described by the clause in question to be unusual, surprising or beyond expected norms.

Offprint from:From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.: Proceedings of the International Conference on Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid 22-24 July 2010Steven Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, eds.© Copyright 2013 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.

20 J. CALE JOHNSON and meaning.2 In this contribution I will draw attention to a second non-ventive use of an */im-/ prefix, namely the use of a bare *im- prefix that immediately pre-cedes a ḫamṭu (non-continuative) verbal root to code an “adjectival passive,” a grammatical category that was first identified in the 1970’s and has been an object of intensive study within disciplinary linguistics in recent years.3 In differentiating the “bare” *im- prefixed verbal forms from other verbal forms that would normally be spoken of as “ventive,” I am necessarily appealing to a largely orthographic distinction in certain Old Babylonian literary texts, at least as a point of departure. The orthographic distinction between prefixes such as *im- and *ì- im- is among the most vexed questions in Sumerian grammar.4 If, however, we can identify syntactic or pragmatic contexts that can also be associ-ated with a particular orthographic form (*im-ROOTḫamṭu) as applied to a subset of the verbal lexicon (verbs other than intransitive verbs of directed motion), then we have a real possibility of breaking the morass of predicates that make use of the “ventive” down into a set of partially independent areas of research.5

1. Is There a Connection Between the *im- and *mu- Prefixes?

The standard accounts of the Sumerian ventive are not simply descriptive, but in fact posit a theoretical model that links two, seemingly distinct, phenomena. The first of these two components of the standard theory is the use of the *mu- verbal prefix to refer to oblique first person referents, as in the following example. (1) First person oblique in *mu- (PBS I/1 6: 42f; Foxvog 1974: 134)

a-ba-a mu-da-an-nú

Who will lie down with me? –––––––––––––

2. Spaced characters are used for specific orthographic forms and forward slashes “/ /” for morphological entities that are represented by more than one orthography. The addition of an asterisk indicates that the form is incomplete, schematic or hypothetical, as for instance a verbal prefix without an accompanying verbal root. Thus some theories argue that * im- and * ì - im- both correspond to a single phonological string */im-/, while others do not.

3. The opposition between verbal and adjectival passives was first developed in early generative works such as Wasow 1977, but achieves a certain maturity in Levin and Rappaport 1986. Important recent studies include Kratzer 2000; Anagnostopolou 2003; Embick 2004.

4. Yoshikawa 1977; Wilcke 1988; Attinger 1993: 265-267; Balke 2006: 78-83; Wilcke 2010: 20-23. 5. Wilcke’s most recent discussion of Sumerian morphosyntax (Wilcke 2010) only became availa-

ble to me as this paper was nearing completion, but one of Wilcke’s proposals does resonate with the proposal made here, namely Wilcke’s excursus on “an antipassive to the PRETERITE/ḫamṭu conjuga-tion” (Wilcke 2010: 38, citing Wilcke’s still fundamental study of “Anmerkungen zum Konjugationsprä-fix /i/- und zur These vom silbischen Charakter der sumerischen Morpheme anhand neusumerischer Verbalformen beginnend mit ì - íb - , ì - im- und ì - in - ,” in particular Wilcke 1988: 15 (b3) and 42-43, with n. 141). Although I find Wilcke’s use of the term “antipassive” for these constructions untenable, his discussion of “transitive verbal forms in ì - im- ... and parallel ones writing im- only without an ERGATIVE marker in front of the base” does point to many of the same issues that are dealt with in this paper. For the most recent postulation of an antipassive in Sumerian, see Schulze and Sallaberger 2007, but it must be said that Schulze and Sallaberger do not seem to take into consideration the cen-tral role that questions of nominal specificity and intensional predication play in classic examples of the antipassive as in, for example, an Inuit language such as West Greenlandic (see Johnson 2010: 24-26 and literature therein).

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 21 Clearly in cases like this (as well as forms in which *mu- is correlated with first person direct objects in the marû),6 there are definite parallels to the Akkadian ventive and the homophonous first person dative. The second component of the standard theory consists of the use of the */im-/ verbal prefix with verbs of inher-ently directed motion such as ĝen ‘to go/come’ to indicate motion toward an origo of deixis. As long as we limit ourselves to verbs that were defined in the mental lexicon of native speakers of Sumerian as intransitive and inherently directional, the combination of the */im-/ prefix with this class of verbs is one of the most sta-ble and consistent features of Sumerian grammar throughout its history. (2) Old Sumerian Ventive with ĝen (Nik. 1 313: i.6-ii.1; Jagersma 2010: 501)

e lam k i-ta / e-ĝen-na-a

When he came from Elam ... (3) Ur III Ventive with ĝen (Donald, MCS 9, 247: 29-30; Jagersma 2010: 500)

lugal ki-en-gi-šè / ì - im-ĝen-na-a

When the king came to Sumer. (4) Old Babylonian Ventive with ĝen (Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta 161; Mit-termayer 2009: 172)

ĝe6 ù-na-ka mul-àm im-ĝen

He came through the starry night. These forms clearly exhibit the same grammatical phenomenon in spite of the fact that quite different orthographies are used to encode */im-/ in each historical phase of the language (*e- , * ì - im- and *im- respectively).7 The distinction between intransitive verbs of inherently directed motion like ĝen ‘to go/come’ and manner-of-motion predicates like kas 4 – du1 1 ‘to run’ can also be brought into alignment with the well-known opposition between unaccusa-tive and unergative predicates, as I have recently shown (Johnson 2010: 81-85). Thus verbs of inherently directed motion regularly employ the *ba- verbal prefix in their non-ventive rection (viz. motion away from speaker), and the *ba- prefix can be associated with unaccusative predicates. Manner-of-motion verbs like kas4

––––––––––––– 6. Attinger 1985. 7. For additional examples, see Yoshikawa 1978: 480; certain Old Babylonian grammatical para-

digms ( im-ma-ĝen) as well as comparable third millennium forms é -e im-ma-ĝen “He came to the temple” (Cyl A xviii.8; Jagersma 2010: 497) have sometimes been taken to suggest that the forms in (2) and (3) are reduced forms, deriving from im-ma-ĝen through the loss of the vowel immediately before the root, when the nominalizer *-a is added to the finite verb (Jagersma 2010: 499, n. 1). If so, this would further differentiate true ventives involving verbs of directed motion from other “ventive” mor-phologies. The alternation between i - im-ĝen (OBGT VII 74) and im-ma-ĝen (OBGT VII 80) in the grammatical paradigms may also support such an interpretation; see Black 1996: 23-24 and Huber 2007: 4 for an overview.

22 J. CALE JOHNSON – du1 1 , however, are not inherently directional and make use of the *bí- prefix in a compound verb structure that should be associated with unergative predicates. (5) Unaccusative in *ba- with verb of inherently directed motion (OBGT VII 90; Johnson 2010: 83)

ba-ĝen = it-ta-lak

He went away. (6) Unergative in *bí- with manner-of-motion verb (OBGT VIII 52 = Veldhuis 2005: 240, line 20'; Johnson 2010: 82)

kas4 bí - in-du 1 1 = il-su-um

He ran. As I have suggested (Johnson 2010: 83-85), however, manner-of-motion predicates can be converted into directed motion predicates through the use of a “double ob-ject construction” in *ba-ni- . Once converted into a directed motion predicate, originally manner-of-motion predicates like kas4 – du1 1 can also make use of * im- to express motion toward the speaker or some other origo of deixis such as é ‘temple’ in the following example. (7) Ventive with converted manner-of-motion predicate (Enki and Ninḫursaĝa 245; Attinger 1984: 26-27; Johnson 2010: 84, ex. 75)

dnin-ḫur-saĝ-ĝá-ke4 (first object é ) (second object kas4) im-ma-an-du 1 1 (= *im-ma-ni-Ø-du 1 1(g))

Ninḫursaĝa ran to the temple. Therefore converted manner-of-motion predicates like kas4 im-ma-an-du 1 1 should not be classified as miratives, but rather as precisely analogous to classic ventive forms such as im-ĝen.8 The ventive hypothesis, as distinct from its two core descriptive components (*mu- with first person obliques/direct objects and */im-/ with verbs of inherently directed motion), links the semantics of movement toward an origo of deixis (proto-typically associated with first person reference) to a morphological rule that ex-plains why the *mu- prefix often surfaces in first person forms, while */im-/ tends to occur with non-first person forms (with a corresponding shift in the origo of

––––––––––––– 8. Certain apparent anomalies such as the use of the converted manner-of-motion paradigm with

intransitive ku 4 ‘to enter’ in examples like Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld 141b: anzu m u š e n -dè . . . ḫur -saĝ -šè ba -an-ku 4 (= /ba-ni-Ø-ku4(r)/) “The Anzud-bird went into the mountains” (cf. du-rative intransitive forms like Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld 263b: é -ga l s i sá -b i ba -an -ku 4 -ku 4 (= /ba-ni-Ø-ku4.ku4/) “he enters the palace easily”) simply result from the fact that ku 4 is lexically specified as a manner-of-motion predicate in Sumerian rather than a directed motion predicate (as it is in English), and must be converted into a directed motion predicate through the use of the dou-ble object construction in most circumstances; cf. Attinger 1993: 197.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 23 deixis).9 Although the precise formulation of this morphological rule depends on the model of the verbal prefix (and Sumerian verbal morphology generally) that one adopts, nearly all proponents of the ventive hypothesis agree in positing an underlying morphological element *-M- that surfaces in different ways depending on its phonological environment. Defined in such narrow terms (morphological forms closely linked to clearly defined and demonstrable semantic fields under an hypothesis that generalizes over divergent forms), I am fully in agreement with the ventive hypothesis.10 In addition to these core examples of the Sumerian ventive, however, there are numerous other examples that make use of “ventive” morphology, but seem to have little or nothing to do with the semantics of movement toward an origo of deixis such as the speaker. It is precisely these “ventive” morphological forms, which lack any clear ventive meaning in context that we will focus on in this paper. (8) Nungal in the Ekur 43-46 (Sjöberg 1973: 30-31; Civil 1993: 73; Attinger 2003: 18)11

43. (hanging topic lú-ùlu-bi) am šu si-il-la-gen7 šu gig-ge4 (adjectival passive im-dab5) 44. ĝìri mu-un-dab5 é a-nir-ra-šè 45. túg igi -na mu-un-si šà sù-ga mu-un-ĝen 46a. (hanging topic ZERO [= lú-ùlu-bi]) kaskal ĝìri-na (marû *im- im-ḫa-al-ḫa-al-e) 46b. (hanging topic ZERO [= lú-ùlu-bi]) s i la daĝal- la (adjectival passive im-dab 5)

This man is held by a painful grip, like a wild ox with spread forelegs. She makes him go to the house of sorrow, She blindfolds him, she walks him in darkness, He forgets his way, He is caught in a wide street. (translation Civil) Anticipating my conclusions somewhat, I have bracketed a hanging topic in clause-initial position in lines 43, 46a and 46b as well as the three bare *im- verbal forms in the passage. Largely for reasons of exposition, I will limit my discussion of ad-

––––––––––––– 9. For a good overview of the maximalist position (denying the existence of the *mu- conjuga-

tion prefix), see Jagersma 2010: 497-511, cf. the minimalism of Woods 2008: 111-160. 10. The classic discussion is Krecher 1985, but anticipated in a fundamental way by Foxvog’s un-

published dissertation (1974). Still, as Landsberger’s discussion in the essay in which he coined the term “ventive” makes clear (Landsberger 1923), the contrast between minimalists and maximalists vis-à-vis the ventive is already present, mutatis mutandis, in the early debate between Thureau-Dangin (1907) and Poebel (1908), the debate that undoubtedly suggested the category to Landsberger in the first place.

11. It is difficult to confirm Sjöberg’s variants without re-examining the original tablets; Sjöberg writes as follows: “L seems to have šu gig-gig in-dab5-bé; O: šu gig-ge4 im-dab5; Q: šu-gig-ge-dam; JJ: šu gig-ga [ ; T: ] x in-dab5” (Sjöberg 1973: 31). Attinger (2003) largely confirms the range of variation sug-gested by Sjöberg, but in line 46b Attinger has ( i ) - im-ra (L and c), and in addition two further vari-ants: im- lug (W), im- TUŠ (P+). Attinger offers “il est poussé” and “il est parqué” respectively (Attinger 2003: 23).

24 J. CALE JOHNSON jectival passives to ḫamṭu singular verbs with the form *im-ROOTḫamṭu.12 If we simply have a look at Civil’s translation of the passage a number of features are noteworthy: ostensibly every one of the six finite verbs in the passage includes the “ventive” prefix, yet Civil’s translation uses something like an English adjectival passive to render the first and the last verbal forms in the passage, namely im-dab5: “This man is held ...” (line 43) and “(This man) is caught” (line 46b). Whereas one can imagine ventive semantics operating in forms like ĝirì mu-un-dab5 and mu-un-ĝen, there seems to be no ventive connotation whatsoever in the *im- prefix forms in the passage.

2. What Is an Adjectival Passive?

The term adjectival passive itself arises in the context of early generative work in the 1970’s, primarily in distinguishing between two types of passivization: one type clearly verbal in form and meaning, hence the verbal passive, and the other exhibiting certain similarities to adjectival constructions, hence adjectival passive. For many English verbs, there is no clear morphological contrast between these two types of passivization, but the syntactic environment in which a given particip-ial form occurs can be used to distinguish them. (9) English participial forms in context (Anagnostopoulou 2003: 2, ex. 1)

a. I have written three poems. (perfect) b. Three poems were written by me. (verbal passive) c. The poems are well written. (adjectival passive) Here in (9), for example, the English participial form written occurs in three differ-ent syntactic contexts: in (9a) it forms part of a perfect construction, in (9b) it is used in an ordinary verbal passive, while in (9c) we have a canonical example of the adjectival passive. In English at least, three tests have usually been applied in order to differentiate adjectival passives from their verbal counterparts: (i) only adjectival passives can also be used as an adjectival modifier within a nominal phrase (a poorly written text), (ii) the negative prefix un- can only be applied to the adjectival passive (an unwritten law), and (iii) only adjectival passives can act as the complement of verbs of appearance or seeming such as “act, become, look, re-main, seem, sound” (Mary sounded uncertain).13 Much of the early debate surrounding the distinction between verbal and adjectival passives was centered on questions of how the lexicon relates to the grammar in a given language: adjec-tival passives were seen as lexically idiosyncratic and thus part of the mental lexi-con, while the form and meaning of verbal passives was predictable on the basis of grammatical principle and therefore seen as deriving from the grammar rather

––––––––––––– 12. The grammatical categorization of marû forms that have the bare * im- prefix remains un-

clear, but Grimshaw’s (1990) discussion of the opposition between event nominals and result nominals may be useful in elucidating the contrast; see Giannakidou and Rathert 2009: 6-7, for an overview.

13. See Anagnostopoulou 2003 for a more detailed description of these three tests. Also note that there is a second un- prefix that applies to English verbs and reverses a previously completed action, e.g. undo, but it is distinct from the un- that can be affixed to an adjectival passive.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 25 than the lexicon. Many of the factors that led to this line of thought are assembled in Horn’s A Natural History of Negation. Citing work by Funk (1971), Horn points out that:

adjectives based on iN- and (semiproductive) un-, even when they originate as eval-uatively neutral and semantically contradictory sense, tend to develop a contrary, affective, and typically depreciatory meaning or connotation. Funk’s examples of this process include inadequate, inappropriate, inconvenient, incorrigible, infertile, irrelevant, uninteresting, and unsatisfactory. And only a failed comedy may be un-funny, not a successful tragedy.14

It is precisely these “affective, and typically depreciatory meaning[s]” that often make a clear and decisive interpretation of adjectival passives somewhat diffi-cult.15 In order to properly define what an adjectival passive is, therefore, we need to distinguish it not only from verbal passives as in (9b) above, but we also have to carefully separate the adjectival passive from ordinary predicative adjectives such as open in a sentence like The door is open. Whereas English participial forms tend to be ambiguous, German allows us to draw a clear distinction between verbal pas-sives (Vorgangspassiv) and adjectival passives (Zustandspassiv). Krazter in par-ticular has used the German Zustandspassiv as a well defined morphosyntactic environment in which further subdivisions within the adjectival passive can be more easily identified. (10) Zustands- versus Vorgangspassive in German (Anagnostopoulou 2003: 4, ex. 8)

a. Das Kind war gekämmt (adjectival/Zustandspassiv) the child was combed The child was combed. b. Das Kind wurde gekämmt (verbal/Vorgangspassiv) the child became combed The child was combed. The crucial difference between the two forms is the verb that serves as the auxil-iary: in the adjectival/Zustandspassiv the auxiliary is sein ‘to be’, whereas the auxiliary in the verbal/Vorgangspassiv is werden ‘to become’. Although both ordi-nary adjectives and the adjectival passive make use of sein in their construction, adjectival passives allow various kinds of adverbial modification, which ordinary adjectival predicates generally do not.

––––––––––––– 14. Horn 2001: 282, citing Funk 1971. For a recent discussion of the lexically idiomatic character

of adjectival passives, see Horvath and Siloni 2008. 15. The seemingly endless debates between lexicalists, who argue for a division of labor between

the lexicon and the grammar in the production of meaning, and a movement like Distributed Morphol-ogy that argues against such a scenario, need not detain us here (see Embick 2004 for a nice discussion of how adjectival passives play out in a Distributed Morphology framework). It is worth noting, how-ever, that even within Distributed Morphology approaches, the adjectival passive is seen as operating directly or almost directly on the lexical ROOT (in the sense of the term as used in Distributed Mor-phology).

26 J. CALE JOHNSON (11) Adjectival passive vs. ordinary adjective in German (Anagnostopoulou 2003: 5, ex. 9)

a. Das Haar war ziemlich schlampig gekämmt the hair was rather sloppily combed The hair was rather sloppily combed. b. Das Haar war ziemlich schlampig fettig the hair was rather sloppily greasy **The hair was rather sloppily greasy. Whereas the adjectival/Zustandspassiv in (11a) allows ziemlich schlampig, “rather sloppily,” as an adverbial modifier, the simple adjectival predicate in (11b) does not permit this kind of adverbial modification.16 Unfortunately adverbs in Sumerian are poorly understood, and although there are no clear manner adverbs among the examples of the Sumerian stative in */a(l)/- assembled by Yoshikawa or Edzard, there also seem to be no examples of the adjectival passive in */im-/ in conjunction with an adverbial expression.17 Kratzer also draws an important distinction between two types of adjectival passive in German: what she terms “target state” as opposed to “resultant state” adjectival passives. (12) Target state (adjectival) passive (Kratzer 2000: ex. 1a)

Die Geisslein sind immer noch versteckt. The little goats are still hidden. (13) Resultant state (adjectival) passive (Kratzer 2000: ex. 2a)

Der Briefkasten ist (*immer noch) geleert. The mailbox is (*still) emptied. Notice in particular that immer noch ‘still’ is only grammatical in connection to the target state adjectival passives, whereas it makes little sense to speak of a mailbox as being still emptied. Kratzer goes on emphasize that the target state passives are –––––––––––––

16. Kratzer (2000) also notes several other important contrasts within the general environment of adjectival/Zustandspassiv constructions such as the fact that negated adjectival passives in German cannot be modified by adverbials and also that adjectival passives allow for a reflexive interpretation that verbal passives do not, but these distinctions are subtle and continue to be debated, see generally Rapp 1996; Anagnostopoulou 2003.

17. There is also a substantial tradition of associating the stative in */a(l)-/ with “variant” forms in either * im- or * ì - , but these discussions have not, as a rule, postulated a distinct category for the forms in * im- : Poebel 1923: 236; Yoshikawa 1982; Attinger 1993: 267-269; Edzard 2003: 91-92 and 97, among many others, see the overview in Yoshikawa 1995. Only Jagersma’s recent grammar (2010: 303-307) draws the same distinction that I propose here, although in slightly different terms. Earlier discus-sions have largely focused on Ur III personal names such as d en - l í l - lá -a l - sa 6 and d en - l í l - lá - ì - sa 6 in which the opposition is between *a l - and * ì - . The same alternation between *a l - and * ì - also makes a rather striking appearance in OBGT VII 31-33 in opposition to OBGT VII 34-36; see Yoshi-kawa 1978: 467-468; Huber 2007: 7.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 27 “in principle reversible,” hence their compatibility with immer noch, but the re-sultant state form “is irreversible and has to hold forever after.” In practice, the combination of ‘still’ with a resultant state adjectival passive is usually replaced by a simple adjectival construction: “Der Briefkasten ist immer noch leer” = “The mailbox is still empty.” Embick (2004) has extended some of Kratzer’s findings specifically with regard to the ambiguous participial forms in English, arriving at a threefold classification of predicates into simple adjective, verbal passive and (re-sultant state) adjectival passive.18 (14) Simple adjective, verbal and adjectival passive (Embick 2004, 356, exx. 1-2)

a. The door is open. (simple adjective) b. The door was opened. (eventive reading = verbal passive) = Someone opened the door. c. The door was opened. (resultant state reading = adjectival

passive) = The door was in a state of having become open. Given such a trichotomy, Embick points out that English participial forms are of-ten two- and sometimes three-ways ambiguous. (15) ROOT Adjective Eventive passive (verbal) Resultant state (adjectival)

Open open open-ed open-ed Close clos-ed clos-ed clos-ed Bless bless-èd bless-ed bless-ed Age ag-èd ag-ed ag-ed Rot rott-en rott-ed rott-ed Sink sunk-en sunk sunk Unlike German, there is no easy morphosyntactic distinction between verbal and adjectival passives in English. Moreover, some adjectives such as closed function in all three environments without any morphological distinction. My point in pre-senting this somewhat bewildering array of participial forms is to emphasize that morphological form in itself is an extremely poor indicator of the correct classifica-tion for an English participial like closed. Instead, we can only make sense of these forms if syntactic contexts of occurrence are carefully defined. Likewise, only a de-tailed investigation of the syntactic context of what I will suggest are (resultant state) adjectival passives in Sumerian will tell us anything about this domain of Sumerian grammar.

––––––––––––– 18. I have altered Embick’s (2004) terminology somewhat simply to avoid confusion: Embick refers

to predicative adjectives such as open as “pure statives,” for example, which is presumably necessary for his own argumentation, but would only result in confusion here, given all of the other stative terminol-ogy in use.

28 J. CALE JOHNSON

3. Old Babylonian Evidence for a (Resultant State) Adjectival Passive in Sumerian

In syntactic terms, the simplest form of the adjectival passive in Sumerian seems to consist of a thematic noun phrase that occurs immediately before the predicate. Any other adverbial phrase (locative, instrumental or agentive in meaning) remains to the left of the thematic subject in this species of adjectival passive. (16) Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld 202-203 (Shaffer 1963: 77; George 2003: 752; Gadotti 2005: 380)19

202. mur kù-ga-na (theme túg) (adjectival passive nu-um-dul) 203. gaba kù-ga-na (theme gada) (adjectival passive nu-um-búr)

There was no garment draped over her bare shoulder, There was no linen spread over her bare breast. Here in (16) the theme of each adjectival passive (túg and gada respectively) oc-curs immediately to the left of the verb itself in precisely the same syntactic posi-tion that plays a central role in a wide variety of compound verb and intensional predicates as well as certain types of informational focus. The use of a negative, existential sentence in the English translation is meant to capture the quantifica-tional character of the construction.20 Although there are constructions like this in which the predicate is not negated (see [19] below), the vast majority of non-negative adjectival passives in *im- move the theme or affected nominal phrase into a clause-initial position through the use of an explicit topicalization construction. (17) Ninurta’s Return to Nippur 83 (= “An-gim dím-ma,” Cooper 1978: 70-71)21

(hanging topic me-lám-zu) é den-l í l - lá-ka túg-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-dul)

As for your radiance, it is draped over Enlil’s house like a garment.

––––––––––––– 19. Both the verbal form and the initial locative phrase are only preserved in two manuscripts for

line 203: manuscript Z has the form I have used here with a locative phrase in combination with the verbal form nu-um-búr , but manuscript AA has [...]- ⸢kù ⸣ -ga -n i gada nu-un-búr , with /-n-/ be-fore the root rather than /-m-/. Manuscript AA omits the preceding line 202 and only manuscript Z gives the form of the verb, as above. Gadotti 2005: 380, transliterates manuscript AA of line 203, muta-tis mutandis, as follows: [gaba] kù-ga -n i gada nu-um-búr , but Shaffer’s copy clearly has nu-un-búr and Gadotti offers no indication that Shaffer’s copy is mistaken.

20. To be more precise, the theme in constructions like this should be thought of as a weak quanti-fier, see Johnson 2005; 2008: 168-171 for a discussion of weak quantification in Sumerian and Akka-dian; for the theoretical background, see Diesing 1992 and Hallman 2004.

21. The same construction also occurs in an ordinary stative in earlier ED IIIb materials: (hanging

topic é me- lám-b i ) kur -kur - ra a -du l 5 (Ent. 8 vi 2; Krecher 1987: 85, n. 10; Attinger 1993: 268).

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 29 (18) The Return of Lugalbanda 32-33 (Vanstiphout 2003: 136-137)22

32. (hanging topic kur-ra ĝissu-bi) ki maḫ-ba 33. túg-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-dul) gada-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-búr)

As for the mountain’s shadow, it was draped over its (= the mountain’s) august places like a garment. It was spread over them like linen.

In (17) and (18), the “subject” of the adjectival passive no longer occurs immedi-ately before the verb; instead, the subject or affected theme has been moved into a “hanging topic” construction at the beginning of the clause. At the same time, how-ever, the original idiomatic quality of the expression has been partially preserved through the use of the equative postposition in túg-gen 7 and gada-gen 7 respec-tively. Unlike the example in (16), the topicalized nominal phrases in (17) and (18), viz. me-lám-zu and kur-ra ĝissu-bi , are clearly specific in meaning and refer-ential in function. In many cases, the correct determination of which nominal phrase is the sub-ject of the adjectival passive requires us to pay careful attention to its context of occurrence and other literary factors. (19) Dumuzi’s Wedding i.21-26 (“Inana and Dumuzi C1,” Sefati 1998: 287 and 291; Tinney 1999: 37)

21. l i -bi - ir-si -né (theme níĝ de6:a) (adjectival passive im-de6) 22. mušen zà-ga mušen-dù mu-un-de6 ub-lam 23. suḫur k u ₆ ⸢gur-gur⸣-ra šu-ku6-dè mu-un-de6 24. nin-⸢ĝu1 0⸣ [x (x)] x ba-an-da-ab-du 1 1 iš-ta-ka-an 25. l ús ipa-dè ì šu-šè mu-un-lá it-ta-na-ši 26. ddumu-zi-dè ga zà-šè mu-un-lá i-na [bu]-⸢di⸣-šu

The gifts, lit. what has been brought, were presented by her bridesman: The fowler had brought choice birds, The fisherman had brought fat carp, and had put them ... my lady; The shepherd kept bringing in ghee in his hands, Dumuzi kept bringing in cheese on his shoulders. In (19), on purely formal grounds, one could argue that either l i -bi- ir -s i -ni “her bridesman” or níĝ de6:a “the things that were brought” is the subject of the adjec-tival passive im-de6.23 But since the subject of an adjectival passive must always

––––––––––––– 22. The synthetic text made available in Vanstiphout 2003 and ETCSL, namely kur - ra ĝ i ssu -

b i k i maḫ-ba / túg -gen 7 i - im-dul gada-gen 7 i - im-búr , is somewhat fictive: it is fairly clear that two different versions of lines 32-33 exist. The majority tradition (manuscripts A and AA in Wilcke 1969: 86-87) has ĝ i ssu -ba rather than ĝ i ssu -b i in line 32 and the verbal forms i - im-dul and i -im-búr in line 33, while the minority tradition (manuscript D = Ni 4498 = ISET 2, 45) has ĝ i ssu -b i in line 32 and has the verbal form im-dul in line 33; the second bare * im- form im-búr reconstruc-ted here is missing from manuscript D due to damage to the tablet.

23. Although de 6 ‘bring’ is a verb of inherently directed motion, it is also transitive, so it can pre-sumably occur with an affected theme in an adjectival passive construction. Any precise differentiation

30 J. CALE JOHNSON be a nominal phrase whose referent is affected by the action of the verb (typically corresponding to the direct object of a transitive verb), we really have no choice in this example: the subject or theme of the adjectival passive must be níĝ de6:a, “the things that were brought,” while l i -bi- ir -si -né acts as an agentive adjunct, presumably in an oblique case of some kind.24 (20) The Curse of Agade 172-174 (Cooper 1983: 173-174)25

172. a-gàr gal-gal-e (theme še) (adjectival passive nu-um-de6) 173. a-gàr sù-sù-ge (theme ku6) (adjectival passive nu-um-de6) 174. pú-ĝ i škiri 6 (theme làl ĝeštin) (adjectival passive nu-um-de6)

There was no barley produced in the large agricultural estates, There were no fish produced in the inundated fields, There was no syrup or wine produced in the watered gardens. (21) Enki and the World Order 258-261 (Benito 1969: 99-100)

258. (hanging topic i ₇ idigna) am gal-gen 7 (adjectival passive šà im-ḫúl) ù-tu-ba mu-⸢ni⸣ -[...] 259. (theme a) (adjectival passive nam-de6) a zal- le na-nam kúrun-bi na-du 1 0-ge 260. (theme še) (adjectival passive nam-de6) še gu-nu na-nam ùĝ-e na-gu 7-e 261. é-kur-re é den-l í l - lá-ke4 (theme níĝ ĝál- la) (adjectival passive nam-⸢si ⸣ )

As for the Tigris, it rejoiced like a great wild bull, when it was born ... There was water – flowing water – its wine will be sweet. There was barley – dappled barley – the people will eat it. There was everything that exists piled up in the Ekur, the house of Enlil. Likewise in (20) and (21) careful attention to which noun is affected by the action behind the adjectival passive shows that še, ku 6 and làl ĝeštin are each the subject in turn of the adjectival passive nu-um-de 6 in (20), while a , še and níĝ ĝál- la are each the subject of a corresponding positive adjectival passive nam-de6 in (21). The adjectival passive in line 258 of (21), viz. šà im-ḫúl must be dif-

––––––––––––– of these two uses of de 6 requires further work, but in the meantime, see Sallaberger 2005; Meyer-Laurin 2010.

24. Agentive nominal phrases that bear the */-e/ postposition are regularly described as repre-senting the “ergative” case, regardless of whether or not there is ergative verbal agreement operating in the clause. Thus in the well-known mes -an-né -pà -da construction, an -né is often described as being in the ergative case, even though the construction is non-finite. For a discussion of the origin of the ergative postposition in Sumerian, see Coghill and Deutscher 2002; Johnson 2004: 319-325; Ja-gersma 2010: 158 and 328-329. Here and in the balance of the paper I use “agentive adjunct” as a neu-tral description of agentive nominal phrases in */-e/ in conjunction with adjectival passive construc-tions. Needless to say, the discursive structure and syntax of an adjectival passive would be an ideal environment for the reinterpretation of an agentive adjunct as an ergative nominal phrase.

25. There is some uncertainty in the variants as to the case of ga l -ga l -e in line 172 and sù -sù -ge in line 173: in line 172, manuscript P1 omits the case marker ga l -ga l , while manuscript U adds a possessive or demonstrative, presumably still in the locative-terminative case ga l -ga l -bé , while in line 173 there is a clear bifurcation between locative sù -sù -ga and locative-terminative sù -sù -ge without any clear correlation with the verbal form.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 31 ferentiated from the other examples in (20) and (21), however. Although šà ‘heart, innards’ has the same basic syntactic and quantificational properties as the af-fected theme in lines 259-261, it differs from these other examples in that it has a clearly topicalized noun as its subject, namely i ₇ idigna ‘the Tigris’. In the follow-ing I will simply include a secondarily affected theme like šà as part of the adjec-tival passive, whenever the theme (šà) in conjunction with the adjectival passive itself acts as a unit to predicate a property of a clearly topicalized noun: hence (hanging topic i ₇ idigna) ... (adjectival passive šà im-ḫúl). We should also pay careful attention, however, to contexts of occurrence and narrative sequences. In (21), for example, parenthetical comments follow the adjec-tival passives in lines 259 and 260, and these parenthetical comments show that a ‘water’ and še ‘barley’ are the subjects of each line in turn rather than a previously established topic such as i ₇ idigna. As the following series of examples in (22) shows, we should also not let our presumptions about whether a compound verb is involved affect our evaluation.26 (22) The Uruk Lament, segment E, 78-81 (Green 1984: 273)

78. (vocative unugk i ) (hanging topic kar-zu zà-zu) ba-ab-⸢dab 5⸣-bé-eš [...] 79. unugk i -ge (theme gù) (adjectival passive im-ra) (theme šeĝ x(KA×LI)) (adjectival passive im-gi4) lú šu dab 5-bé [...] 80. sig-šè (theme za-pa-áĝ) (adjectival passive im-ĝar) sig ba-gul á nam-⸢ba?⸣ -[...] 81. nim-šè (theme šu) (adjectival passive im-zi) nim ba-sè tab-ba la-ba-x [...]

O Uruk! As for your harbor and your borders, they were seized ... There was shouting in Uruk, screams reverberated, its captured men ... There was noise to the south. The south was destroyed and ... There was violence in the highlands. The highlands were struck ... (translation after Green) In spite of the fact that there is a clear topic in line 78, viz. kar-zu zà-zu, it makes little sense to suggest that kar-zu zà-zu is the subject of the series of ad-jectival passives that follow in lines 79 through 81. In each of these four examples (gù im-ra, šeĝx im-gi4 , za-pa-áĝ im-ĝar and šu im-zi), the presence of the theme immediately before the verbal root in conjunction with the absence of a clearly topicalized nominal phrase indicates that there is an amorphous mass of that type of behavior (viz. “shouting,” “screaming,” “noise” and “violence”) that is taking place in and around the city of Uruk.

4. The Hanging Topic Construction

Unlike the foregoing examples in which the theme or affected noun that immediately precedes the adjectival passive is the subject, the vast majority of ad-jectival passive constructions in the literary Sumerian of the Old Babylonian pe-riod co-occur with a hanging topic that acts as the subject of the adjectival passive.

––––––––––––– 26. Kratzer emphasizes that adjectival passives can easily “be formed from impersonal, idiomatic,

and resultative constructions” (Kratzer 2000: 4).

32 J. CALE JOHNSON One of the most straightforward examples of a hanging topic as the subject of an adjectival passive is in (18), which I repeat below. (23) The Return of Lugalbanda 32-33 (Vanstiphout 2003: 136-137)27

32. (hanging topic kur-ra ĝissu-bi) ki maḫ-ba 33. túg-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-dul) gada-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-búr)

As for the mountain’s shadow, it was draped over its (= the mountain’s) august places like a garment. It was spread over them like linen.

As I have argued elsewhere (Johnson 2010: 125-135), the hanging topic consists prototypically of an anticipatory genitive that has moved to clause-initial position as a unit such as kur-ra ĝissu-bi , “as for the mountain’s shadow.” Zólyomi (1993; 1996; 2005) has also dealt with the formation of the anticipatory genitive and its role in topicalization structures in numerous publications as well as an un-published dissertation that is particularly relevant to the issues under discussion here. And although I agree with his description of the anticipatory genitive in part, it must be emphasized that various current theoretical models would all inde-pendently require the genitive phrase (kur-ra in [23]) to move through the syn-tactic position to the left of ĝissu-bi within the nominal phrase, before any split-ting of the anticipatory genitive can take place.28 (24) Formation of hanging topic construction (Johnson 2010: 129-132; cf. Zólyomi 1996)

(a) (DP ĝissu kur-ra) < ordinary genitive > (b) (DP (Topic kur-ra) ĝissu-Ø) < topicalization of genitive within the DP > (c) (DP (Topic kur-ra) ĝissu-bi) < addition of resumptive pronoun > (d) (DP (Topic kur-ra) ĝissu-bi) <<...< movement of AG to clause-initial position >

The plan of the house The most likely scenario is that anticipatory genitives only split when the right side of the anticipatory genitive (ĝissu-bi) gets trapped in an oblique case adja-cent to the verb. (25) Gudea Cyl A xvii.17 (Wilcke 2005: 291; Johnson 2010: 135) (left side of AG é-a) den-ki-ke4 (right side of AG + locative-terminative ĝiš-ḫur-bé) si mu-na-sá Enki straightened out the plans of the temple for him. (26) Gudea Cyl A v.4 (hanging topic é -a ĝiš-ḫur-bi) (marû *im- im-ĝá-ĝá) As for the plan of the house, he was laying it out. –––––––––––––

27. See n. 23 above. 28. In other words, the genitive phrase must move through the specifier of the DP, see Boeckx and

Grohmann 2005; cf. Karahashi and Santorini 2010.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 33 Whereas the example in (26) makes use of a hanging topic construction in combi-nation with an *im- prefix verbal form (marû rather than the ḫamṭu forms that we are concerned with here), the right side of the anticipatory genitive in (25) must be in an oblique case as the “oblique object” of the finite compound verb si mu-na-sá, hence the locative-terminative form ĝiš-ḫur-bé.29 The genitive phrase (é-a in [25]) can still move on its own further to the left of den-ki-ke4, but the fact that leftward movement of ĝiš-ḫur-bé is blocked by its oblique case shows defini-tively that split anticipatory genitives are not hanging topics. Pronominal possessive constructions in clause-initial position seem to serve precisely the same syntactic and pragmatic purpose. (27) Advice to a Young Scribe 16-17 (“Eduba C”)30

16. (hanging topic níĝ zu-a-ni) (adjectival passive pa nu-um-è) ka-ka-ni ba-an-lá 17. tukum-bi (first object níĝ zu-a-ni) (second object pa) ba-an-è igi mu-un-suḫ-suḫ-ù-ne

As for his knowledge, it was inconspicuous – his speech was humble. If he had made his knowledge known, they would have gotten angry. (28) Lugalbanda in the Wilderness 248-250 (Vanstiphout 2003: 116-117)

248. ùkur-re lú- lul-e lú túg nu-tuku-e 249. (hanging topic gaba u 4-da-zu) t ú gzulumḫi kù-gen 7 ša-mu 4-mu4

250. (left side of AG é ur5-ra) túg siki babbar (right side of AG + locative bar-ba) (adjectival passive im-dul)31

As for your sunshine, it clothes the poor, the liar and the naked as if they were wearing a shining zulumḫi-garment. It is like a white woolen garment draped over the outside of a debtor’s house.

––––––––––––– 29. Zólyomi 1999. 30. Again the use of a compound verb raises a host of questions, but it is fairly clear that n íĝ zu -

a -n i is the subject of the adjectival passive pa nu-um-è : note in particular the double object con-struction in line 17 with pa in second object position as expected for a double object construction; see Johnson 2010: 87-124. The same adjectival passive also occurs with a weakly quantified, pre-verbal theme in Proverb Collection 19, Sect. D 10: g i 4 - in -na (theme an -ba ) (adjectival passive pa nu-um-è ) “No litter was visible to the slave girl” (Alster 1997: 247).

31. Here we see the phrase túg s ik i babbar moved out of the preverbal position into the mid-dle of an anticipatory genitive (or to be more precise, the right side of the anticipatory is trapped next to the verb by the locative case, and the left side of the anticipatory genitive has been topicalized inde-pendently). Either way, the placement of túg s ik i babbar to the left of bar -ba indicates that the actual subject of the adjectival passive is the hanging topic in line 249, viz. gaba u 4 -da -zu . If túg s ik i babbar were the subject, it should have occurred to the right of bar -ba in the preverbal posi-tion reserved for weakly quantified subjects. Since it has been moved out of this preverbal position, it should probably be interpreted as if it were in the equative case, viz. túg s ik i babbar -gen 7 , “like a white woolen garment.” In other examples the adjectival passive itself moves immediately to the right of the hanging topic, stranding an equative on its right, as in Išme-Dagan and Enlil’s Chariot 10: (hanging

topic ĝ i š šu -kár -zu ) (adjectival passive da l la maḫ im-è ) ĝ i š t i r š im ĝ i š e r in -na -gen 7 , “As for your furnis-hings, they are really outstanding, like a forest of aromatic cedars” (translation ETCSL).

34 J. CALE JOHNSON (29) Gudea Cyl. A ix.25 (Zólyomi 1993: 133; Johnson 2010: 130)

(hanging topic igi ḫuš-a-ĝu 1 0) kur-re (adjectival passive nu-um-íl )

As for my terrible visage, it is unbearable to a foreign land. Thus in these three examples first-, second- and third-person possessive pronomi-nal hanging topics provide a clear indication of the topic-comment structure that is often found in conjunction with the adjectival passive. There are other types of leftward displacement in Sumerian syntax, so we should be careful to differentiate these hanging topic constructions from other forms of topicalization. In speaking of these examples as hanging topics I am sug-gesting that phrases such as níĝ zu-a-ni , gaba u 4-da-zu and igi ḫuš-a-ĝu 1 0 are operating largely outside the usual case-marking system. This phenomenon has parallels in a number of languages, but Boeckx and Grohmann offer a particu-larly nice example from German in (30b) below. (30) Two kinds of left dislocation in German (Boeckx and Grohmann 2005: 1, ex. 1, cf. Johnson 2010: 126, exx. 3 and 4)32

(a) Contrastive left dislocation in German (= internal topicalization) Diesen Frosch, den hat die Prinzessin gestern geküßt this.ACC frog RP.ACC has the princess yesterday kissed This frog, the princess kissed (it) yesterday.

(b) Hanging topic left dislocation in German (= external topicalization) Dieser Frosch, den hat die Prinzessin gestern geküßt this.NOM frog RP.ACC has the princess yesterday kissed This frog, the princess kissed it yesterday. Both (30a) and (30b) involve left dislocation and make use of a resumptive pronoun den to the right of the left dislocated element, but the example of contrastive left dislocation in (30a) maintains the accusative case on the left dislocated nominal, while the hanging topic left dislocation in (30b) does not: dieser Frosch is of course in the nominative case even though it corresponds to the direct object of the verb. In other words, hanging topic left dislocation is simply a more precise formulation of the old idea of casus pendens. Once we recognize the central role of the topic-comment structure in the for-mation of the adjectival passive in Sumerian, the discursive structure of many passages in the Sumerian literary texts can be greatly clarified. As the following examples show, the hanging topic can vary dramatically in its internal complexity and it can even be omitted if its identity is recoverable from the context.

––––––––––––– 32. RP = resumptive pronoun; NOM = nominative case; ACC = accusative case.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 35 (31) Nungal in the Ekur 42-43 (Sjöberg 1973: 30-31; Civil 1993: 73; Attinger 2003: 18)33

42. (hanging topic dnun-gal nin é kur-ra šu maḫ-a-ni) (adjectival passive im-si) 43. (hanging topic lú-ùlu-bi) am šu si-il-la-gen7 šu gig-ge4 (adjectival passive im-dab5)

As for the august hands of Nungal, the warden of the prison, they are filled (by the prisoner). As for the person (viz. the prisoner), she/he is held by the painful grip like an immobilized wild bull.

(32) The Curse of Agade 56 (Cooper 1983: 52-53)34

56. (hanging topic dumu-gi7-gen7 é ki-ĝar di-da la-la-bi) (adjectival passive nu-um-gi4)

As for her desire to establish a temple like the local ones, it was unrequited. (33) Inana and Ebiḫ 121-122 (Jaques 2004: 213; Attinger 1998: 174-175)35

121. (hanging topic ĝ i škir i 6 nisi -bi ) (adjectival passive gurun im-lá) / (hanging topic ZERO [= ĝ i škiri 6 nisi -bi]) (adjectival passive gir i 1 7 -zal im-du 8-du8) 122. (hanging topic ĝ iš maḫ-bi) (adjectival passive àga an-na im-di) u 6 di -dè ba-gub

As for its flourishing gardens, they are covered with fruit and plastered with joy. As for its majestic trees, their crowns are in the heavens. They stand there to be praised.

(34) The Return of Lugalbanda 90-92 (Vanstiphout 2003: 140-141)

90. mušen-e gùd-bi-šè ḫé-em-ma-te-ĝe2 6-da-ka 91. anzum u š e n-dè gùd-bi-šè ḫé-em-ma-te-ĝe2 6-da-ka 92. (hanging topic ZERO [= gùd-bi]) ki diĝir t i - la-gen 7 (adjectival passive im-ak) (hanging topic ZERO [= gùd-bi]) (adjectival passive gir i 1 7 -zal im-du 8-du8)

When the bird approached its nest, When the Anzu(d) approached its nest, It (= the nest) was like a place where a god lives, it was plastered with joy. The two examples in (31), which partially repeat example (8) above, are particu-larly interesting in that each of these two topic-comment structures is describing the very same state of affairs from a different point of view, namely the situation that results from Nungal seizing a prisoner with her hands. Line 42 sets up Nun-–––––––––––––

33. Var. d nun-ga l n in -é -kur - ra - ra (raised possessor construction). 34. d i -da is only preserved in one witness (O3). Var. dù -ù -dè for k i ĝar d i -da/dam. The one

instance in which both dù -ù -dè and the finite verb are preserved (B) suggests that, when the antici-patory genitive ( é k i -ĝar d i -da la - la -b i ) is replaced with a purpose clause (dù -ù -dè ), the appro-priate verbal form is nu -un-g i 4 rather than nu-um-g i 4 . On the association of im-g i 4 with the ac-quisition of cultic or political power, see Rowton 1962: 245-246, as well as the connection between im-g i and ḫammāʾu ‘usurper’ (Rochberg 2010: 20-21).

35. Var. im- lá > í l - la -gen 7 , im-s i > i - im-s i .

36 J. CALE JOHNSON gal’s hands as the hanging topic and describes them as “filled,” presumably with the prisoner. The prisoner him- or herself then appears as the hanging topic in line 43 and is described as “seized by the painful grip ... .” Before turning to the bilingual evidence as well as some possible third millen-nium precursors, I would like to reiterate that the two dozen preceding examples seem to conform quite well to the features of the adjectival passive sketched out above. Negative adjectival interpretations such as pa nu-um-è “inconspicuous,” nu-um-íl “unbearable” or nu-um-gi4 “unrequited” fit very nicely into their con-texts of occurrence, and generally speaking the examples can all be seen as de-scriptions of resultant states (Anagnostopoulou’s second and third tests).36 The first of the three tests described by Anagnostopoulou, namely the possibility for an adjectival passive to occur as a pre-nominal modifier, cannot be applied to Sume-rian materials of course, since pre-nominal modifiers are generally disallowed in Sumerian except for the odd epithet.

5. Bilingual Evidence for the Adjectival Passive in Sumerian Although the first of Anagnostopoulou’s diagnostics (morphological equivalence between the adjectival passive and pre-nominal, viz. attributive, adjectives) does not seem to exist in Sumerian, we do see something quite similar to this phenome-non in the predicative and attributive uses of the verbal adjective in Akkadian. The only difference is that Akkadian attributive adjectives follow the noun that they modify rather than preceding it: bītum ṣabtum “the seized house” as opposed to bītum ṣabit “the house was seized.” Nonetheless, the fact that these trailing ad-jectival forms fully agree with the noun that they modify makes it clear that they are attributive adjectives. In terms of identifying the adjectival passive, however, the problem with Akkadian is that both ordinary predicative adjectives and adjec-tival passives make use of precisely the same grammatical form: bītum ṣabit being formally identical to bītum damiq, “the house is nice.”37 For our purposes here, however, the most important feature of the predicative use of the Akkadian verbal adjective is that it predicates a property (including relevant adverbials and even the occasional direct object) of a subject. Therefore any clear usage of the predica-tive verbal adjective in Akkadian to translate the Sumerian adjectival passive must necessarily represent the same topic-comment discursive structure that I have outlined above.

––––––––––––– 36. In English the “description of resultant states” test is usually formulated in terms of the

possibility of an adjectival passive acting as a complement to verbs such as “act, appear, be, become, feel, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, stay” (Anagnostopoulou 2003: 3), but in a head-marking lan-guage like Sumerian this type of semantic phenomenon is, as expected, indicated by a morphological formative on the verb itself rather than a complementation structure.

37. Contrasts between nominal and verbal predicate stems as well as a host of terminological de-bates have spawned a substantial literature (Rowton 1962; Buccellati 1968; Kraus 1984; Huehnergard 1986; 1987; Müller 1995; Kouwenberg 2000), but to my knowledge no attempt has been made to rigor-ously distinguish adjectival passives from simple predicative adjectives in Akkadian. Landsberger’s translation of aḫiz as “er ist (mit einer Frau) verheiratet” (Landsberger 1968: 85, apud Kraus 1984: 9) and similar uses of the German Zustandspassiv to translate predicative verbal adjectives in Akkadian, however, are already suggestive.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 37 The best place to look for such things is undoubtedly the standard and widely attested bilingual texts such as The Exploits of Ninurta (“Lugal-e”) and Ninurta’s Journey to Nippur (“An-gim dím-ma”). Since the Akkadian translations in The Ex-ploits of Ninurta are assembled and studied in Seminara’s recent book, we turn here to three examples of the Sumerian adjectival passive in *im- that appear in The Exploits of Ninurta translated into Akkadian with the predicative verbal ad-jective. (35) The Exploits of Ninurta 60 (van Dijk 1983: vol. 2, 47; Seminara 2001: 62, 492-494; for Late Babylonian [LB], see Geller 2010)

(hanging topic á-sàg zi -ga-bi) šu la-ba-ĝál (hanging topic ZERO [= á-sàg] dugud-da-bi) (adjectival passive im-gu-ul)

OB: a-sak-ku ti-bu-us-su ul im-maḫ-ḫar kab-tu-us-su ma-aʾ-⸢da⸣-[at] LB: [a-sak-ku] ⸢ti-bu-su ul⸣ [im]-⸢maḫ-ḫar ka⸣-[ab]-⸢ta⸣-su ma-aʾ-[dat]

As for the violence of the Asag, it cannot be faced. As for its weight, it is exceed-ingly heavy, lit. enlarged.

(36) The Exploits of Ninurta 62 (van Dijk 1983: vol. 2, 47; Seminara 2001: 62, 492-494)

(hanging topic ur5-ra kal-ga-bi) (adjectival passive saĝ im-gi4) ĝ i š tukul-e ĝiš la-ba-ab-kíĝ

[…] ⸢dan⸣-nu-us-su up-pu-qa-at-ma kak-ku […]

As for the strength of this thing, it is overwhelming. No weapon has been able to overturn it.

(37) The Exploits of Ninurta 75 (van Dijk 1983: vol. 2, 50; Seminara 2001: 68, 492-494)

(hanging topic en zi -ga-ni) an-né (adjectival passive im-ús)

šá be-li ti-bu-us-su AN-e e-mi-id

As for the ascent of the lord, it is extended into the heavens. All three examples make use of the same hanging topic construction that we saw in earlier examples, although in each case the possessor in the relevant hanging topic is a nominalized verb (dugud-da, kal-ga and zi-ga respectively). This is presumably a late specialization of the more general use of the hanging topic con-struction in earlier materials,38 but nonetheless the Akkadian translations of the hanging topics correctly render the anticipatory genitive in each example, so we can be fairly sure of their interpretation: a-sak-ku ti-bu-us-su, “as for Asakku, its –––––––––––––

38. In his talk at the conference in Madrid, Rubio mentioned a possible Ur III witness to The Exploits of Ninurta, so I should emphasize that in speaking of a “late specialization” I am referring to the Old Babylonian translation technique (and its underlying theory) rather than the linguistic form of the Sumerian.

38 J. CALE JOHNSON attack,” kab-tu-us-su, “(as for Asakku), its weight,” [...] ⸢dan⸣-nu-us-su, “as for ..., its strength,” and šá be-li ti-bu-us-su, “of the lord, his ascent.” More importantly, in each example a bare *im- ḫamṭu predicate in the Sumerian is translated with a predicative verbal adjective in the Akkadian: im-gu-ul = ma-aʾ-⸢da⸣-[at], saĝ im-gi4 = up-pu-da-at-ma and im-ús = e-mi-id. In (35), for example, the adjectival passive im-gu-ul is derived from the Sumerian verbal root gu-ul rather than its ordinary adjectival equivalent gal , and this subtle difference in form and meaning is also captured in the Akkadian translation ma-aʾ-da-at, “it is numer-ous/extensive.”39 Likewise in (36) saĝ im-gi4 is translated with up-pu-qa-at-ma, a D-stem third person, feminine singular verbal adjective of epēqu ‘to embrace, to cover over’, while in (37), the well-known idiom an-né im-ús is also translated with a predicate verbal adjective of emēdu, ‘to lean on’.40 It is particularly notewor-thy that, although Akkadian predicative verbal adjectives translate a number of different Sumerian verbal forms in The Exploits of Ninurta (* ì - , *mu-un-, *mi-ni- among others), all three occurrences of the Sumerian adjectival passive in *im-ROOTḫamṭu, in which the hanging topic was recognized as such in the Akka-dian translation, are translated with a predicative verbal adjective in Akkadian. The only clear exception to the translational equivalency between *im-ROOTḫamṭu and predicative verbal adjective in Akkadian occurs in line 97 of The Exploits of Ninurta and, crucially, the hanging topic construction was not recog-nized by the Akkadian translators in this line. (38) The Exploits of Ninurta 97 (van Dijk 1983: vol. 2, 58-59; Seminara 2001: 76-77)

(hanging topic lú ím-ma-bi) kur-re (adjectival passive im-ra) (hanging topic ir i -bi ) (adjectival passive bu-du-ug im-za)

la-si-im-šu ina šá-di-i i-du-uk-ma IRI-šu ú-⸢ab⸣-[bit]

He struck its runner in the mountains, he obliterated its city. (translation of Akkadian)

The reduced form of the anticipatory genitive in the hanging topic construction – simply lú ím-ma-bi rather than NOUN-a lú ím-ma-bi – may have obscured the topic-comment structure of the line, leading to a reinterpretation of im-ra and bu-du-ug im-za as finite verbs rather than adjectival passives. Nonetheless we should still keep in mind that the two examples in (38) conform perfectly to the topic-comment structure of the adjectival passive as described above, even if its Akkadian-speaking translators did not recognize the telltale discursive structure.

––––––––––––– 39. Thus, generally speaking, purely adjectival or stative roots like ga l , ĝá l or me never occur

with the bare * im- prefix in Old Babylonian Sumerian; the frequently attested form im-me always represents the marû form of du 1 1 , i.e. /e/ ‘to say’ rather than the root me ‘to be’ in the adjectival pas-sive. Whereas simple adjectives and inherently stative predicates do not normally occur in the Sume-rian adjectival passive, they do regularly occur with the stative prefix *a l - .

40. The idiom already occurs in canonical form in the Gudea Cyl. A ix 16: (hanging topic me - lám ḫuš -b i ) an -né (adjectival passive im-ús ).

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 39 One other example of a Sumerian adjectival passive with extensive Akkadian glosses occurs in a student’s lentil from Ur that includes a well-known Sumerian proverb. (39) UET 6/2 367: 1 (Alster 1997: vol. 1, 324 and vol. 2, 474-475; Ludwig 2009: 231)

lú níĝ-tuku lú níĝ nu-tuku la-ap-nu-um a-na ša-⸢ri⸣-im g ig-šè mim-ma mu-úr-ṣí-im

im-ĝar ša-ki-in-šu-um

The wealthy man is plagued by the poor man. Here as well we find a nice example of an Akkadian predicative verbal adjective, namely ša-ki-in-šu-um, translating a Sumerian adjectival passive in im-ĝar. The only problem here is the absence of an explicit topicalization structure. This exam-ple is also interesting, however, in that it gives us a glimpse into how the orthog-raphy of the adjectival passive is updated over time: contemporary variants of (39) have both ì -ĝar and in-ĝar, variations that occur fairly often in the Old Babylo-nian material, but the line also corresponds to The Instructions of Shuruppak 184, which in the Early Dynastic version has the plain verbal root without any verbal prefix whatsoever.41 The semantic field covered by the Sumerian adjectival passives is largely homologous to the semantic range of the predicative verbal adjectival in Akkadian. Although there are several substantial problems with Rowton’s well-known survey of the predicative use of the verbal adjective in “Classical Babylonian,”42 still Row-ton’s examples illustrate the fact that the primary function of the predicative ver-bal adjectives in Akkadian as well as the adjectival passive in Sumerian is to at-tach properties to the referent of the nominal phrase that is the topic of the predi-cation, hence the frequent use of verbs of appearance (im-dul, im-búr, gurun im-lá), verbs indicating possession, availability or control (im-dab 5, im-de6, im-gi4) as well as verbs involving the acquisition of knowledge or perception (pa im-è, im-zu and the series of examples involving “noise” in [22]).43

6. Third Millennium Precursors

There are undoubtedly a number of late third millennium examples among the foregoing materials (besides the examples from the Gudea Cylinders in [25] and n. 40, several other examples come from texts that were presumably composed in the Ur III royal court), but as we move further back in time into the third millennium the distinct orthography (*im-ROOTḫamṭu) that we have used as an initial diagnos-tic for the category gradually disappears. In general terms, the syntactic configura-tion that I identified above (hanging topic followed by *im-ROOTḫamṭu) can occa-

––––––––––––– 41. Alster 2005: 88. 42. Rowton 1962; the most important critique is Huehnergard’s (1986; 1987), although is must be

said that Rowton’s introduction remains a particularly good pre-theoretical description of the adjectival passive (avant la lettre).

43. For an insightful overview of these issues, particularly the role of abstraction in the use of ‘have’, see Saebø 2009; we should also note, however, that Ungnad’s (1917) early discussion of “Haben” in Akkadian covers some of the same ground.

40 J. CALE JOHNSON sionally be identified in the third millennium sources with a single important dif-ference: the use of the verbal form ì-ROOTḫamṭu in place of im-ROOTḫamṭu. Both Jagersma (2010: 303-307) and Wilcke (2010: passim) have on occasion suggested that forms such as ì -dab 5 should be interpreted as a “stative passive” (Jagersma) or “the passive to the antipassive” (Wilcke). The idea behind both pro-posals closely resembles the category of adjectival passive as sketched out here, even if only a handful of the forms adduced by Jagersma and Wilcke precisely con-form to the morphosyntactic characteristics outlined above. The following line from an Ur III legal text is one such example. (40) NSGU 2 30: 2 (Jagersma 2010: 374, ex. 69; see also NATN 920: 5)

(hanging topic ab-ba-ĝá ma-ar-gi8-ni) (adjectival passive ì -ĝá-ar)

As for the freedom of my father, it was established. The corresponding forms in the Ur-Namma law code are regularly in the marû ra-ther than the ḫamṭu, so I have not otherwise included them in this paper, but they do clearly belong to the same grammatical system. (41) Ur-Namma Code A 227-229 = C 91-92 (Wilcke 2002: 313; Roth 1997: 17)

tukum-bi ÁRAD-dè / géme á-áš-a-ni in-tuku ⸢x x⸣ / (hanging topic ÁRAD-bé ama-ar-gi4-ni) ì -ĝá-ĝá / é-ta nu-ub-ta-è

If a male slave marries a female slave, his beloved, and that male slave is given his freedom, she/he will not leave the house. (translation Roth)

The hanging topic in (41) is somewhat unusual and the ubiquitous marû forms in Codex Ur-Namma such as ì -ĝá-ĝá or ì - lá-e make any comparison with forms like the one in (40) quite difficult. Nonetheless it is noteworthy that in Codex Ur-Namma, clauses that include an ergative phrase regularly use *in- as their verbal prefix in the ḫamṭu, so the contrast between ergative ḫamṭu forms in *in- and ad-jectival passives like ì -ĝá-ar in (40) may be rather significant. In my view, a more promising way of identifying the adjectival passive was initiated by Mamoru Yoshikawa in the late 1970’s. There are good reasons not to resurrect Yoshikawa’s general model of topicalization and it must take its place alongside other “special” theories of Sumerian grammar such as the ruminations of Thorkild Jacobsen on the conjugation prefixes. The part of Yoshikawa’s work, how-ever, that I would like to incorporate into on-going investigations of Sumerian topic-comment structures is a group of three empirical observations that Yoshi-kawa made in several places, but primarily in two of his early English papers (Yo-shikawa 1978; 1979). These three observations can be reformulated as follows. (42) Yoshikawa’s Three Observations

(i) With verbs that normally occur with the *mu- prefix, when the agent is not explicitly mentioned, the verbal prefix is often *ì- or *e- (depending on Early Dy-nastic vowel harmony) rather than mu-.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 41 (ii) With verbs that normally occur with the *bí- or *be- prefix, when the agent is not mentioned explicitly, the verbal prefix is often *ì- or *e- rather than *bí- or *be- . (iii) In those cases in which an explicit agent does co-occur with a verb bearing the *ì- or *e- prefix, the verb is generally in the marû aspect rather than the ḫamṭu. If we focus here on the first two of these three observations. The basic idea is that the *ì- or *e- conjugation prefix replaces other conjugation prefixes like */mu-/ or */bi-/ when there is no explicit agent in the ḫamṭu ergative/absolutive rection. In other words, Early Dynastic verbal forms that normally bear the */mu-/ or */bi-/ prefixes in the presence of an explicit agent regularly shift to the *ì- or *e- pre-fixes when an explicit agent is not present. In (43) and (44), I have reproduced some of the examples that Yoshikawa was taking into consideration. (43) Examples of * ì - replacing *mu- in the absence of an explicit agent44

(a) VS 14 40: rev.iv.7-11 (Yoshikawa 1979: 189, ex. 7) GÁN níĝ-en-na GÁN nígin-na-kam (ergative en-ig-gal nu-bànda) mu-gíd En-iggal, the lieutenant, measured the domain lands, in their entirety.

(b) VS 14 40: rev.iv.3-6 (Yoshikawa 1979: 189, ex. 7) (hanging topic GÁN-bi) 2( iku) 1/4( iku) ki šúm-ma-kam (hanging topic ki -su7 ki -šúm-ma-bi) šà níĝ-en-ka-ka (precursor to adjectival passive ì -gíd) As for the fields, there are two and a quarter iku of onion fields.

As for the threshing floors and the onion fields, the ones inside the domain lands, they were measured.

In (43) we have a contrast between mu-gíd in (43a) with a nice ergative agent en-ig-gal nu-bandà and ì -gíd in (43b) with a clear hanging topic, but without any explicitly marked agent. (44) Examples of * ì - (or *e-) replacing *bí- (or *be-) in the absence of an explicit agent

(a) DP 214 obv. i 1 and rev. i 3-5 (Krecher 1985, 140, n. 16a) 1(aš) ème mu 2(diš tenu ) … (ergative en-ig-gal nu-bànda) zà bí -šu 4 En-iggal branded one two-year-old female equid ...

(b) DP 98 i 1-3 (Krecher 1985: 140, n. 16a) 6(aš) u 8 4(aš) udu nita (precursor to adjectival passive zà ì -šu 4) As for the six ewes and four rams, they were branded. –––––––––––––

44. The idiom that is used here to measure a surface area is expressed with šà followed by the name of the field and then the genitive and locative cases, hence šà n íĝ -en -ka -ka = /ša niĝenak-ak-a/, cf. DP 595 obv. ii 4 - rev. i 1: 1 (èše ) 2 ( iku) GÁN kud-rá šà -ba ì -g íd , i.e. /ša bi-a/ with posses-sive pronoun in place of the genitive.

42 J. CALE JOHNSON Likewise, in (44), where we have the compound verb zà – šu 4 ‘to brand,’ the form in (44a), zà bí-šu4, has an explicit agent (the same en-ig-gal nu-bandà as before) and also makes use of the *bí- prefix that is often found with compound verbs, while the example in (44b), which does not have an explicit agent, uses the *ì- prefix. Even though the topicalization in (44b) is not explicit, I have translated it in line with the example in (43b). Overall, the general absence of explicit agen-tive phrases from a syntactic environment that combines *ì- or *e- with a ḫamṭu root may well suggest that something like an adjectival passive was operating within Early Dynastic administrative documentation.45 Roughly the same discursive structure that Yoshikawa identified in the Early Dynastic administrative materials also seems to be present, at least to some de-gree, in narrative materials such as the following well-known extract from the Umma-Lagash border war. (45) Ent. 28-29 i 13-21 (Yoshikawa 1979: 189; Balke 2006: 197, ex. 365; Frayne 2008: 195)

(a) (ergative UŠ énsi ummak i-ke4) nam-inim-ma diri -diri -šè e-ak (b) (hanging topic na-rú-a-bi) ì -bu x(PAD) (c) edin lagask i -šè ì -kux(DU)

UŠ, the ruler of Umma, acted arrogantly; he ripped out (or smashed) that monu-ment and marched on the Eden district of Lagash. (translation after Frayne)

In (45a) we have a clear ergative phrase UŠ ensí ummak i-ke4, although no os-tensible direct object, while in (45b) we have a nice hanging topic construction na-rú-a-bi “as for the boundary marker,” but the agent must be carried over from the first clause in (45a). Then in (45c) we have neither explicit agent, nor explicit di-rect object with an intransitive verb like *kux(DU) ‘to enter’. I have not yet been able to locate an example in which both an ergative agent and a hanging topic co-occur in the presence of the *i- conjugation prefix, and it may be that there was simply a scribal convention – an aesthetic rather than a grammatical norm – against placing both entities within a single clause. It is remarkable, however, that if we turn to a comparable example like (46) that uses the *mu- prefix instead of *ì - , the hanging topic construction seems to disappear.46 (46) Ean. 6 iii 7-10 (Krecher 1985: 168; Frayne 2008: 141)

(ergative lú ummak i-ke4) ba-ri -r i (absolutive na-rú-a) mu-bu x(PAD)

The leader of Umma ... and ripped out (their) boundary marker. (translation Frayne)

––––––––––––– 45. The description of ì - or e - in the Early Dynastic period is further complicated by the existence

of dialectical differences between northern and southern Mesopotamia, in particular the use of *a- to form passive constructions in materials from the north, see Jagersma 2010: 303-307.

46. On the opposition between */mu-/ and */i-/, see Woods 2008: 134-144 as well as Steiner 1994.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 43 Here in (46), in conjunction with the *mu- verbal prefix, the direct object (na-rú-a) has lost the possessive pronoun that led us to identify it as a hanging topic in (45b), although in nearly every other respect (45b) and (46) are identical. I do not wish to suggest that verbal forms like ì -bu x(PAD) in (45b) are adjecti-val passives in the strict sense of the term. Their co-occurrence with the hanging topic construction in the Early Dynastic period is irregular at best, and the narra-tive examples look much more like a serial verb construction than a resultative adjectival passive. It may well be the case, however, that topic-comment discursive structures such as (45b) provided the syntactic and pragmatic environment in which a morphologically distinct adjectival passive comes into existence sometime in the later third millennium. Intransitive verbs of inherently directed motion, which are orthographically indistinguishable from forms like ì -bux(PAD) in the Early Dynastic period, undoubtedly served as the analogical model for such a de-velopment.47 Whatever the historical origin of the */-m-/ immediately before the verbal root in actual ventive constructions that are based on intransitive verbs of directed motion, this */-m-/ occurs in the ergative agreement slot for a transitive ḫamṭu verb and in doing so seems to neutralize the usual ergative agreement sys-tem, a neutralization that would be particularly appropriate for an adjectival pas-sive that is necessarily both intransitive and resultative.48

Bibliography

Alster, B. 1997 Proverbs of Ancient Sumer. The World’s Earliest Proverb Collections, 2 vols. Be-

thesda: CDL Press. 2005 Wisdom of Ancient Sumer. Bethesda: CDL Press. Anagnostopoulou, E. 2003 Participles and voice. Pp. 1-36 in Perfect Explorations, ed. A. Alexiadou, M. Rathert,

and A. von Stechow. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Attinger, P. 1984 Enki and Ninhursaga. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 74: 1-52. 1985 Les préfixes absolutifs de la première et de la deuxième personne singulier dans les

formes marû ergatives. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 75: 161-178. 1993 Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du11/e/di «dire». Göttingen:

Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. 1998 Inana et Ebiḫ. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 88: 164-195.

––––––––––––– 47. Wilcke notes that the distinctive orthographic forms in * ì - im- (and the like) first appear in

the Old Akkadian period (Wilcke 2010: 13-14), so the contrasts between * im- and * ì - im- may simply be an orthographic device that is meant to distinguish between ventives and emergent adjectival pas-sives (cf. Attinger 1993: 266). It is noteworthy, for example, that transitive directed motion predicates such as the examples in im-de 6 in (19), (20) and (21) easily fall into both categories and also play a central role in bookkeeping, so an orthographic distinction may have been invented in order to differen-tiate them. As Yoshikawa has repeatedly noted, even when verbal orthographies are reorganized in the Old Babylonian period, an orthographic distinction is maintained between true ventives such as i - im-ĝen and other forms such as * im- and * ì - im- .

48. On the centrality of both pragmatic and morphosyntactic alignment in processes of analogical change, see Silverstein 1995.

44 J. CALE JOHNSON 2003 L’Hymne à Nungal. Pp. 15-34 in Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien:

Festschrift für Claus Wilcke, ed. W. Sallaberger, K. Volk, and A Zgoll. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Balke, Th. E. 2006 Das sumerische Dimensionalkasussystem. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 331.

Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Benito, C. A. 1969 “Enki and Ninmah” and “Enki and the World Order.” Ph. D. dissertation, Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania. Black, J. 1996 Sumerian Grammar in Babylonian Theory, 2nd ed. Studia Pohl Series Maior 12.

Rome: Biblical Institute Press. Boeckx, C., and Grohmann, K. K. 2005 Left dislocation in Germanic. Pp. 131-144 in Focus on Germanic Typology, ed. W.

Abraham. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Buccellati, G. 1968 An Interpretation of the Akkadian Stative as a Nominal Sentence. Journal of Near

Eastern Studies 27: 1-12. Civil, M. 1993 On Mesopotamian Jails and their Lady Warden. Pp. 72-78 in The Tablet and the

Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, ed. M. E. Cohen, D. C. Snell and D. B. Weisberg. Bethesda: CDL Press.

Coghill, E., and Deutscher, G. 2002 The origin of ergativity in Sumerian and the “inversion” in pronominal agreement:

a historical expanation based on Neo-Aramaic parallels. Orientalia Nova Series 71: 267-290.

Cooper, J. S. 1978 The Return of Ninurta to Nippur: an-gim dim2-ma. Analecta Orientalia 52. Rome:

Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. 1983 The Curse of Agade. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Diesing, M. 1992 Indefinites. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 20. Cambridge: MIT Press. Edzard, D. O. 2003 Zum sumerischen Verbalpräfix a(l)-. Pp. 87-98 in Literatur, Politik und Recht in

Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke, ed. W. Sallaberger, K. Volk, and A Zgoll. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Embick, D. 2004 On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English. Linguistic Inquiry 35: 355-

392. Foxvog, D. A. 1974 The Sumerian Ventive. Ph. D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Frayne, D. R. 2008 Presargonic Period (2700–2350 BC). RIME 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Funk, W.-P. 1971 Adjectives with Negative Prefixes in Modern English and the Problem of Synon-

ymy. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 19: 364-386. Gadotti, A. 2005 “Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld” and the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle. Ph.

D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 45 Geller, M. J. 2010 Late Babylonian Lugale. Pp. 93-100 in Your Praise is Sweet: Memorial Volume for

Jeremy Black, ed. H. D. Baker, E. Robson, and G. Zólyomi. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

George, A. R. 2003 The Babylonian Gilgamesch Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform

Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giannakidou, A., and Rathert, M. 2009 Quantification, Definiteness and Nominalization. Oxford Studies in Theoretical

Linguistics 24. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, M. W. 1984 The Uruk Lament. Journal of the American Oriental Society 104: 253-279. Grimshaw, J. 1990 Argument Structure. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hallman, P. 2004 NP-interpretation and the structure of predicates. Language 80: 707-747. Horn, L. R. 2001 A Natural History of Negation. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and

Information. Horvath, J. and Siloni, T. 2008 Active Lexicon: Adjectival and verbal passives. Pp. 105-134 in Current Issues in

Generative Hebrew Linguistics, ed. S. Armon-Lotem, G. Danon, and S. Rothstein. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Huber, P. 2007 On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Grammar: A Reexamination of OBGT VI-

X. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 59: 1-18. Huehnergard, J. 1986 On Verbless Clauses in Akkadian. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 76: 218-249. 1987 “Stative,” Predicative Form, Pseudo-Verb. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46: 215-

232. Jagersma, A. H. 2010 A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian. Ph. D. dissertation, Universiteit Leiden. Jaques, M. 2004 Inanna and Ebiḫ: Nouveaux textes et remarques sur le vocabulaire du combat et de

la victoire. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 94: 202-225. Johnson, J. C. 2004 In the Eye of the Beholder: Quantificational, pragmatic and aspectual features of the

*bi- verbal prefix in Sumerian. Ph. D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

2005 Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Akkadian: Identifying Weak Quantification in the Construct State. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 57: 85-98.

2008 Decomposing the DP in Sumerian: Definiteness, specificity and the BNBV diagnos-tic. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 98: 151-188.

2010 Unaccusativity and the Double Object Construction in Sumerian. Beihefte zur Wie-ner Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 7. Vienna: LIT.

Karahashi, F., and Santorini, B. 2010 Sumerian relative clauses with anticipated arguments: A null analysis. Forthcom-

ing. Kouwenberg, N. J. C 2000 Nouns as Verbs: The Verbal Nature of the Akkadian Stative. Orientalia Nova Se-

ries 69: 121-171.

46 J. CALE JOHNSON Kraus, F. R. 1984 Nominalsätze in Altbabylonischen Briefen und der Stativ. Mededelingen der Konin-

klijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks 47/2. Amsterdam, New York: Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij.

Krazter, A. 2000 Building Statives. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 26: 385-399. Krecher, J. 1985 Die /m/-Präfixe des sumerischen Verbums. Orientalia Nova Series 54: 133-181. 1987 Morphemless Syntax in Sumerian as Seen on the Background of Word-Composition

in Chukchee. Acta Sumerologica 9: 67-88. Landsberger, B. 1923 Der “Ventiv” des Akkadischen. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 35: 113–123. 1968 Jungfraulichkeit: Ein Beitrag zum Thema Beilager und Eheschliessung. Pp. 41-105

in Symbolae iuridicae et historicae Martino David dedicatae, vol. 2, ed. J. A. An-kum. Leiden: Brill.

Levin, B., and Rappaport, M. 1986 The Formation of Adjectival Passives. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 623-661. Ludwig, M.-Ch. 2009 Literarische Texte aus Ur: Kollationen und Kommentare zu UET 6/1-2. Berlin: Wal-

ter de Gruyter. Meyer-Laurin, V. 2010 Die marû-Basen der sumerischen Verben tùm und re6 / de6. Zeitschrift für

Assyriologie 100: 1-14. Mittermayer, C. 2009 Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata: Ein ungleicher Wettstreit. Orbis Biblicus et

Orientalis 239. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Müller, H.-P. 1995 Ergative Constructions in Early Semitic Languages. Journal of Near Eastern Stud-

ies 54: 261-271. Poebel, A. 1908 Das Verbum im Sumerischen. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 21: 216-236. 1923 Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik. Rostock: Selbstverlag des Verfassers. Rapp, I. 1996 Zustand? Passiv? – Überlegungen zum sogenannten “Zustandspassiv”. Zeitschrift

für Sprachwissenschaft 15: 231-265. Rochberg, F. 2010 “If P, then Q”: Form and Reasoning in Babylonian Divination. Pp. 19-28 in Divina-

tion and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World, ed. A. Annus. Oriental Insti-tute Seminars 6. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago.

Roth, M. 1997 Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. SBL Writings from the

Ancient World 6. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Rowton, M. B. 1962 The Use of the Permansive in Classic Babylonian. Journal of Near Eastern Studies

21: 233-303. Saebø, K. J. 2009 Possession and pertinence: the meaning of have. Natural Language Semantics 17:

369-397. Sallaberger, W. 2005 “bringen” im Sumerischen: Lesung und Bedeutung von de6 (DU) und túm (DU). Pp.

557-576 in Von Sumer Bis Homer: Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zum 60. Geburtstag am 25. Februar 2004, ed. R. Rollinger. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix 47 Schulze, W., and Sallaberger, W. 2007 Grammatische Relationen im Sumerischen. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 97: 163-214. Sefati, Y. 1998 Love Songs in Sumerian Literature: Critical Edition of the Dumuzi-Inanna Songs.

Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. Seminara, Stefano 2001 La versione accadica del Lugal-e: La tecnica babilonese della traduzione dal su-

merico e le sue regole. Materiali per il Vocabolario Sumerico 8. Rome: Herder. Shaffer, A. 1963 Sumerian Sources of Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ph. D. dissertation,

University of Pennsylvania. Silverstein, M. 1995 Kiksht “impersonals” as anaphors and the predictiveness of grammatical-categorial

universals. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 21: 262-286. Sjöberg, Å. 1973 Nungal in the Ekur. Archiv für Orientforschung 24: 19-46 + taf. III-X. Steiner, G. 1994 Sumerischen Verbalpräfix mu= und e= im sprachtypologischen Vergleich. Zeit-

schrift des Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Supplement 10: 32-48. Thureau-Dangin, F. 1907 Sur les préfixes du verbe sumérien. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 20: 380-404. Tinney, S. 1999 Ur-Namma the Canal-Digger: Context, Continuity and Change in Sumerian Litera-

ture. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 51: 31-54. Ungnad, A. 1917 “Haben” im Babylonisch-Assyrischen. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 31: 277-281. van Dijk, J. J. A. 1983 lugal ud me-lám-bi nir-ĝál: Le récit épique et didactique des Travaux de Ninurta, du

Déluge et de la Nouvelle Création. Leiden: Brill. Vanstiphout, H. L. J. 2003 Epics of the Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta. SBL Writings from the Ancient

World 20. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Veldhuis, N. 2005 Grammatical texts in their intellectual contexts. Acta Sumerologica 22: 227-247. Wasow, Th. 1977 Transformations and the Lexicon. Pp. 327-360 in Formal Syntax, ed. P. Culicover,

T. Wasow, and A. Akmajian. New York: Academic Press. Woods, Ch. 2008 The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of

Voice. Cuneiform Monographs 32. Leiden: Brill. Wilcke, C. 1969 Das Lugalbandaepos. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1988 Anmerkungen zum “Konjugationspräfix” /i/- und zur These vom “silbischen

Charakter der sumerischen Morpheme” anhand neusumerischer Verbalformen be-ginnend mit ì-íb-, ì-ím- und ì-ín-. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 78: 1-49.

2002 Der Kodex Urnamma (CU): Versuch einer Rekonstruction. Pp. 291-333 in Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Ja-cobsen, ed. T. Abusch. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.

2005 The Verb si–sá: A Diachronic List of Datable Occurrences Grouped according to the Number of Participants to the Action. Acta Sumerologica 22: 279-301.

48 J. CALE JOHNSON 2010 Sumerian: What We Know and What We Want to Know. Pp. 5-76 in Language in

the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internatio-nale 1/1, ed. L. Kogan et al. Babel und Bibel 4/1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns

Yoshikawa, M. 1977 On the Verbal Prefix Chains ì-in-, ì-ib-, and ì-im-. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 29:

223-236. 1978 Sumerian Ventive and Ientive. Orientalia Nova Series 47: 461-482. 1979 The Sumerian Verbal Prefixes mu-, ì- and Topicality. Orientalia Nova Series 48:

185-206. 1982 The Sumerian Verbal Prefix al-. Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 19: 66-71. 1995 The Sumerian Verbal Prefix a-. Acta Sumerologica 17: 299-307. Zólyomi, G. 1993 Voice and Topicalization in Sumerian. Ph. D. dissertation, Eötvös Loránd Univer-

sity. 1996 Genitive Constructions in Sumerian. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 48: 31-47. 1999 Directive infix and oblique object in Sumerian: An account of the history of their

relationship. Orientalia Nova Series 68: 215-253. 2005 Left-dislocated possessors in Sumerian. Pp. 161-188 in Universal Grammar in the

Reconstruction of Ancient Languages, ed. K. É. Kiss. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.