Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

(6) Ean. 1 9:2-3 (Zólyomi 1999: 218)
e 2.an.na.tum 2.ra lu 2 ti mu.ni.ra
eanatum-ra lu ti [mu] 4-[n] 5/6-[i] 10-√ra
PN-Dat man arrow Vent-Anim-Dir-hit
Somebody struck Eannatum with an arrow,
(7) Cyl. A 15: 19-21 (Zólyomi 1999: 242, ex. 61)
kur œiß eren.na lu 2 nu.ku 4.ku 4.da gu 3.de 2.a en d nin.œir 2.su.ke 4 œiri 3 mu.na.ni.œar
kur eren-ak lu nu-ku.ku-ed-a gudea-r
mountain cedar-Gen man Neg-enter.Redup-ED-Loc PN-Dat
en ningirsuk-e œiri [mu] 4-[n] 5/6-[a] 7-[ni] 10-√œar
lord PN-Erg foot Vent-Anim-Dat-Dir-place
Ningirsu has made Gudea make his way into the Cedar Mountain where
nobody is to enter
All three examples are causative constructions that exploit a compound verb, and since
causativization of low transitivity verbs seems to be one of the basic features of alienable
BNBV constructions (as already noted by Zólyomi [1999, 238-242]), any future work on
the alienable BNBV class will have to investigate causativization in detail. The alienable
class is not, however, dealt with in substantial fashion herein.
But, at this point in the discussion, the most important thing to notice is the relative
incoherence and analytical complexity of the verbal prefixes in (5), (6) and (7): examples
(5) and (6) are roughly parallel, differing only in the animacy of the directive argument:
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