Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

sentence (taking into consideration other typological factors such as verb-final word
order).
(18) a. Gudea, Cyl. A 5:4 [ETCSL 2.1.7] (Zólyomi 1993, 35)
[ Topic e 2.a œiß.˙ur.bi] im.œa 2.œa 2
[ Topic As for the plan of the temple] i, he was setting it i out.
b. Gilgamesh and the Netherworld [1.8.1.4], l. 179
[ Topic œiß e.ke 4.ma.zu] ganzer.ta [ Focus œa 2.e] ga mu.ra.ab.e 11.de 3
[ Topic As for your ekema] i, let [ Focus me] retrieve it i for you from Ganzer,
In the topic construction in (18a), the topic appears in sentence-initial position and bears
a possessive pronoun, here made possible through the use of an anticipatory genitive
construction (“Of the house, its plan”) and I have translated it accordingly using an “As
for ...” topicalization and a resumptive pronoun (the coreferential elements in the
translation share the subscript “i”). As noted above, the definiteness (and hence its
suitability as topic) of the topical phrase e 2.a œiß.˙ur.bi is indicated by the possessive
pronoun. The focus construction in (18b), however, is in answer to a wh-question, “who
will retrieve my ekema from Ganzer,” and as expected in the answer to the wh-question,
the first person singular pronoun œa 2.e, occurs as far to the right as possible in the
sentence and can be juxtaposed to the topical noun phrase on the extreme left edge of the
sentence.
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