Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

discrete, bounded entity such as the brow of Huwawa, whereas the locative in version A
would be more appropriate to a relatively unbounded entity such as a bed of reeds:
ultimately the shift in verbal form from te.œe 26.dam to mu.da.te.œe 26.e.dam may well
have resulted from the shift in nominal postposition from locative-terminative to locative.
Since the change in nominal postposition results from the ambiguity inherent in the
metaphor, namely “his brow is a reed-bed,” both saœ.ki.ni and œiß.gi presumably refer to
the same entity. More importantly, the alternation between locative and locative-
terminative shows that the /-a/ in version A is not a relative marker (it would be
surprising if indefinite relative clauses made use of an explicit relative marker, cf. Old
Babylonian indefinite relatives in warad i˙liqu “an escaped slave” (Huehnergard 2000,
188, cf. Kienast 2001, 447) and the non-specific “indefinite” Middle Egyptian relative in
gmj.n=j h≥f3w pw jw=f m jj.t “I found that it was a serpent which was coming” (Sh.S 61-
62; Loprieno 1995, 158). Since the marker, whether locative or locative-terminative, is
simply a nominal postposition, the form bi 2.gu 7.e cannot be a progressive/imperfective
(marû) verbal form.
Further examples of the indefinite relative are somewhat more difficult to identify
but they are regularly found in a rhetorical device in which an indefinite relative is
followed by a definite noun having the same referent as in the following two examples.
(52) A tigi to Enki for Ur-Ninurta (Ur-Ninurta B) [2.5.6.2], ll. 25-28
25. en ma˙ an ki.a za 3 bi 2.dib mu.zu August lord, you excel in heaven and earth,
pa bi 2.e 3
147
your name shines forth,