Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

302. lu 2 izi.la 2 igi bi 2.du 8.am 3
igi nu mu.ni.du 8.am 3
(var. mu.de 3.du 8.am 3)
303
(Gilgamesh:) Did you see a man who’d
burned? (Enkidu:) I didn’t see one.
303. gidim.a.ni nu.œal 2 i.bi 2.ni As for his ghost, it is not there. As for his
an.na ba.e.e 11
smoke, it went up into the sky,
In (36), neither of the two occurrences of igi mi.ni.in.il 2 take a perceived object as an
argument: igi refers to the eye of the beholder rather than that which is perceived and if a
target of the “looking at” does occur, it is never followed by the locative-terminative
postposition *-e: in the set of attestations collected by Karahashi (2000, 125-126), the
object being “looked at” is followed by the dative (*-ra), the locative (*-a) or the
terminative (*-ße 3). The main verb in each line, igi bi 2.ib 2.du 8.ru, does occur with the
perceived object in the locative-terminative case and agrees with it in number, *-eß, as
well. In (37), the point of interest is the contrast between Enkidu’s report of successful
perception in line 300 and the report of unsuccessful perception in line 302, igi nu
mu.ni.du 8.am 3. This type of alternation apparently provided the impetus for a number of
forerunners to the directive case hypothesis (Poebel 1933; Falkenstein 1978, 188; Gragg
1973a, 72), so that, for instance, just a few lines after arguing for a distinctively
“locative” interpretation of *-ni-, Gragg cautions that “[t]his position which we have
taken should not however be allowed to obscure the close relationship that exists between
- n i -, i m – m i -, (and also b í -)” (Gragg 1973a, 72). In my view, the differences in form
result from the need for a direct object with a verb meaning “to see” even when the verb