SumerianGrammar

THE VERB 83
“pertaining to the fact that they are” = “because they are (. . .)”
Gudea Cyl. A xxvi 15.
Thomsen 1984, 273–78; Attinger 1993, 312 f.
The free form is mainly used when [me] is understood as a “preterite”
or “future” and when the form is nominalized by the particle [a].
The [a] of [am] may be superseded by a preceding vowel: -bi-im
[bi-(a)m]” “it is its (. . .)”; -zu-um [zu-(a)m] “it is your (. . .)”. It is
unlikely that there was an original distribution of two forms: [am]
after C and [m] after V because we find, e.g., hé-àm.
[am] was written by AN in OS, transliterated as am 6 . From the
frequent combination of the nominalizing particle [a] + copula [am],
-a-am 6 [a’am] the more recent (Ur III) spelling A.AN = àm arose,
probably after the hiatus originally present in [a’am] had disappeared,
resulting in [âm].
After the genitive particle [ak] and after [d] or [n], the CVC
cuneograms kam, dam, and nam are normally used: za-a-kam [za(e)-
(a)k-am] “it is yours”, min-nam [min-am] “it is two”.
For enclitic [am] derivation from *i-m(e) (or *a-m(e)), i.e., a reduced
free form with prefixed particle [i] or [a] has been proposed: Poebel
1923, 72 ff., followed by Falkenstein 1949, 147. A heteronymous
form is, however, more probable, because heteronymy in the copula
conjugation is also found in other languages, e.g., Indo-European.
12.7.2. Conjugation pattern 2a: Transitive
Given its great similarity to pattern 1, we describe pattern 2a, marû,
imperfective, before pattern 2b, ¢am†u, perfective.
sg. 1 st ì-lá-en [i-laH-en] “I pay”
sg. 2 nd ì-lá-en [i-laH-en]
sg. 3 rd ì-lá-e [i-laH-e]
pl. 1 st ì-lá-en-dè-en [i-laH-enden]
pl. 2 nd ì-lá-en-zé-en [i-laH-enzen]
pl. 3 rd (person class only) ì-lá-e-ne [i-laH-ene]
The pattern offered here has been simplified because only one participant
has been noted, the suffixed ergative markers; the second
participant, the ‘object’ denoted by absolutive markers, has been disregarded
here (see below p. 84 f.).