Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

achievements in lines 73, 108, and 164, but changes in each occurrence of the
progressive/imperfective activity predicates in lines 74, 109, and 165. Since all six lines
provide background information in each of the three passages, it makes good sense that
they all remain consistently in the progressive/imperfective (marû) aspect in each case.
With the exception of the second person singular copula in line 108, “let it be you who
…,” the precative/future forms of bi 2.in.e 11.de 3 differ from the indicative form only in the
addition of the modal he 2. This is in stark contrast to the quite systematic variation in the
pronominal agreement marker (*-Ø-, *-n-, *-b-) in each of the three examples of the
progressive/imperfective activity: ˙e 2.em.ma.da.ra.e 11.de 3, ˙e 2.em.ma.da.ra.an.e 11.de 3,
and im.ma.da.ra.ab.e 11.de 3 in lines 74, 109, and 165 respectively.
However we choose to interpret the pronominal agreement morphology that
immediately precedes the verbal root in these examples (for the standard theory, see
Michalowski 1980a; cf. Woods 2001, 263-285), one conclusion is unavoidable: whereas
the agreement in the activity predicates in lines 74, 109, and 165 is clearly affected by
person (second in 109, third in 74 and 165) and modality (precative in 74 and 109,
indicative in 165), the agreement morphology of the progressive/imperfective
achievements remains completely unaffected by these changes in person and modality.
This indifference to modality and person results, in my view, from the fact that the
progressive/imperfective achievements in lines 73, 108 and 164 are non-agentive and,
since they are non-agentive, the expected alternation between ergative animate *-n- in the
perfective and accusative inanimate *-b- in the progressive/imperfective (at least in the
151