Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

limited to two pairs of exemplars, 24 the details so precisely correspond to the two-step
derivation discussed above (state [adjective] > achievement > accomplishment) that some
consideration of the forms must be allowed. Again, using the three example sentences in
English as scaffolding, the derivational correspondences can be understood as follows:
(70) a. The floor is clean. ˙ul
b. He swept the floor clean. bi 2.in.˙ul
c. He gave the floor a clean sweep. ßu ˙ul bi 2.in.du 11.ga
The presence of the *bi-√ prefix in (70b) and (70c), the achievement and the
accomplishment respectively, would seem to indicate that it is the *bi-√ prefix that codes
telicity, while the addition of ßu under nominalization seems to derive the
accomplishment (70c) from the achievement in (70b). In formal terms, there are a
number of intriguing similarities between the English and the Sumerian constructions in
(70c) such as nominalization (*-a), the demotion of the original verbal root to a nominal
argument position (˙ul) and its replacement by a newly introduced ditransitive verb
(du 11), but one of the primary differences, which I would like to associate with the
introduction of ßu in (70c), is that unlike (70b) the English sentence in (70c) is agentive.
The contrast can be seen more clearly if the subject of the English sentences in (70b) and
(70c) is changed to an inanimate noun. Thus a (resultative) achievement such as “the
wind swept the floor clean” is fine with a non-agentive subject like “wind,” but “the wind
24 Although not brought into discussion here, the larger set of examples of the form ßu su˙3.a ba.ab.du 11 (Lament over
Sumer and Ur 67) presumably offer a minimal contrast with complexes of the form ßu ˙ul bi 2.in.du 11.ga.
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