Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

4.2 Focus-affected *bi-√ prefix constructions
In the Sumerian literary materials from the Old Babylonian schools, there are a dozen or
so examples of a verb in the progressive/imperfective (marû) aspect bearing the verbal
prefix *nam-bi 2-√. These verbal forms have conventionally been assimilated to a modal
system in which the prefix *na- in conjunction with a perfective (˙amt¬u) verbal form
indicates positive assertion, while co-occurrence with an progressive/imperfective (marû)
verbal form indicates prohibition. I would like to propose a somewhat different
interpretation of the forms in which *nam- immediately precedes the *bi-√ prefix:
namely, that *nam- is a conventionalized orthography for a sequence made up of either
the modal particle *na- or the simple negation *nu- followed by the copula as represented
in (6).
(6) nam-bi 2-√ nam bi 2-√ (< *na/nu-am 3 bi 2-√)
That is, given conventional principles of scope under negation, that it represents a
negation of the focused constituent in an otherwise positive assertion of the content of the
presupposition, namely whatever topic is in play as well as the semantic content of the
*bi-√ verbal form. The special feature of this construction as opposed to other
constructions in which a focus constituent is differentiated from other presupposed
constituents is that, in most of the following cases, explicit morphosyntactic evidence of
one kind or another separates the focused material from the presupposed material: the
constituents to the left of the focused phrase are demarcated by either the possessive
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