Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

eduplicated Sumerian verbal form corresponding to the D-stem does not indicate the
plurality of the direct object, but rather that the direct object is beaten to a point of
completion: fulled cloth being cloth that has been beaten until it reaches a point at which
it is fully cleansed and thickened. Thus the reduplication in this case contributes the
adjectival values of “to be clean” and “to be thick.”
(5) Nabnîtum J 331-342 (Finkel 1982 [MSL 16], 165; Yoshikawa 1993, 293;
Molina and Such-Gutiérrez 2004, 4)
331. ze 2 ba-qa-mu to pluck
332. ze 2.ze 2
…
(ba-qa-mu)
342. ze 2.ze 2 bu-uq-qu-mu to pluck clean
Here likewise, the reduplication of the verbal root does not seem to indicate plurality of
the direct object, but rather a resultative which includes the adjectival meaning “to be
clean,” yielding something like “(a sheep) plucked clean” as its resultative meaning. But
as should be apparent from the distance between lines 331 and 342, the simple opposition
envisioned by Yoshikawa is not so simple: while it is true that basic and reduplicated
stems follow directly in lines 331 and 332, the blank space in the translation column of
line 332 presumably indicates that it is to be translated with a G-stem Akkadian verb just
like the non-reduplicated form in line 331; the D-stem reduplication occurs ten lines later
and is not preceded by a non-reduplicated form. This seems to indicate that reduplicated
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