Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

(39) a. [[Joe wowapi wa owa] ki] wac‘i
Joe book Indef wrote Def want-1Sg
I want the book that Joe wrote
b. [[… √ bi] ni] …
Indef Def
The difficulty, however, lies in discovering how definiteness plays out in the grammar of
Sumerian, particularly in terms of topic and focus.
The role of definiteness in the matter of *bi-√ and *mini-√ remains somewhat
unclear, primarily because definiteness in Sumerian has not yet been differentiated from
specificity and it seems to be very much tied up with the pragmatic opposition between
topic and focus. 33 If the *mini-√ hypothesis proposed above is valid, then verbs of the
form *mini-√ are formally identical to the possessive pronoun topicalization
constructions mentioned earlier.
(40) a. ama.ni < ama + ni (3Poss)
As for his mother, she . . .
b. igi mi.ni.in.du 8 < igi √du 8-bi 2 + ni (3Poss) + n (AnimAgr)
As for the one who has seen . . ., he/she . . .
33 The shades or ghosts mentioned in example (43) below, however, are specific indefinites, which suggests that
definiteness rather than specificity is the criterion at work in Sumerian.
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