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PrincipIe
oí
determinatives.
CHAPTER IV.
The Determinatives'.
§ 64. Although Sumerian makes little attempt to distinguish the
genders and there are no orders of declensions whatsoever, yet it pos­
sesses a thorough system of determinatives by means of which whole
groups of words are classified. The principie of classification is strictly
materialistic, a word being determined by the general name of the na­
tural group to which it belongs. Thus an object made of leather would
be preceded by the word fol' leather su as suesir=senu, 'sandal, shoe'.
N ames of different kinds of fishes and birds are preceded or (in these two
cases) more often followed by the words for fish (!fa) and bird (musen).
unag ga (musen) = aribu, 'ra ven'. uz-tur-( musen) =paspasu, tu (musen)
-summatu, 'dove'. sur-dü-(musen),=surdü, 'falcon". NUN-(!fa)
= agargaru, a salt waterfish 3. !fa precedes its word in ganam, N IKOL­
SKI, 270 obv., col. IlI. On the botanical side the grammarians recog­
nize but two great groups, the woody exogenous group and the veget­
able endogenous group; the former is determined by the word for wood
gis and the latter by the word for plant ú (sammu). On the zoological
side, beside the great divisions of birds, fishes, and serpents (mus), the
Sumerians attempted a more minute classification of insects. The
principie of classification was not strictly scientific; we have here three
great orders :
1. An antiquated discussion oí determinatives by LENORMANT, Études, 2nd Série,
p. 43 f.
2. This loan-word tends to prove that the postfix was not pronounced here.
See Gud., ey!' A 29, 10, where the determined noun íor dove is inflected tu­
(nwsen)-e.
3. PINCHES. Amherst, 4, V 4. VlI 1.