Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

115. nam d en.lil 2.le lu 2.u 18.lu.a That the fate of humanity is determined by
nam.bi tar.ra Enlil,
116. dumu kiœ 2.gi 4.a ad.da.na.ka That a son should follow in the occupation
i 3.ib 2.us 2
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of his father,
117. a.ra 2 na.me.ka ka.tar.ra.a Haven’t you heard these precious statements
du 11.du 11 œiß li bi 2.tuku.am 3
made innumerable times?
This composition is better known as Der Vater und sein missratener Sohn after the
edition of Sjöberg (1973). The meaning of the passage is still quite uncertain and I have
taken the absence of an explicit agreement marker before the verbal root in combination
with the copula following the verb as an indication that line 117 is a question (for a
similar construction, see the series of igi bi 2.du 8.am 3 [“did you see . . . ?”] predicates at
the end of Gilgamesh and the Netherworld). The final verb in line 115 also shows a great
deal of formal variation: nam.bi tar.ra (K and EE), nam bi 2.ib.tar.re (Z), nam.bi
in.tar.re (AA), nam.bi in.tar.ra.am 3 (FF), nam.bi tar.re (II), nam bi 2 [...] (JJ). It seems
fairly clear that the variation revolves around the sequence /nam bi tar/ and one
interpretation, nam bi 2.ib.tar.re (Z), belongs to a grammatical class dealt with in chapter
4, namely the *XP nam bi-√ distributional class.
(33) UM 29-15-367 I 5-6 (Civil 1964, 9, Karahashi 2000, 180)
munus.e u 2.lal 3.am 3 zu 2 bi 2.in.gub ßa 3.gal ba.ni.in.œar
It was the clover that the woman tasted, and it became her meal,