SumerianGrammar

THE VERB 149
12.15.2.2. Verbalization no longer recognizable to us
al du 11 (-g)/e/di “to wish, to strive for” has a nominal element al
with unknown etymology: see Attinger 1993, 443 with fn. 1179.
sá du 11 (-g)/e/di “to reach, arrive” is derived from sá “être égal à”
by Attinger 1993, 641; in fact, “to say ‘equal’” = “to measure up to
something”, may be the appropriate etymology; but it is not certain.
a-ne/e-ne du 11 (-g)/e/di “to enjoy, play” has a nominal element
which Landsberger (see Attinger 1993, 472 fn. 1294) equated with
the personal pronoun “he, she”; Landsberger saw the origin in counting-out
rhymes: “it is him, her”; but this is uncertain.
12.15.3. Difficult cases: artificial splits
sa∞g(-[e“]) [rig] “to give as a present” has been claimed as a pre-Old
Akkadian loan from Akkadian “aràkum “to present” in its stative form
“arik, with an artificial split of the Semitic root ”RK into [sa(∞g)] and
[rig].
Cf. Karahashi 2000, 140 with fn. 93, and see already I. J. Gelb,
MAD 3 (1957) 284.
Note: While the spelling of the first, ‘nominal’, element, [sa(∞g)], is consistently
SAG, [rig] offers several—diachronical—spelling variants, each one of the diri(g)
type: PA.KAB = rig 8 (see below, Ean. 2 vii 6); KAB.[SA]G.DU = rig 9 (see below,
Steible 1982 b 201); PA.KAB.DU = rig 7 in Ur III and OB. These spellings still
remain unexplained.
d
Nin-∞gír-su-ra Lum-ma-gin 7 -du 10 sa∞g-é“ mu-ni-rig 8 “(Eannatum) gave
(the canal) L. as a present to Nin∞girsu” Ean. 2 vii 3–6.
Note: Like with nam tar, sa∞g(-[e“]) [rig] uses the directive for the (god or) person
in whose favour the action is made.
[sa]∞g r[i]g 9 (KAB.[SA]G.DU Steible 1982 b 201: AnAgr. 4 ii 2' (OS,
in broken context).
ĝe“
gu-za d En-ki-k[e 4 ] sa∞g ha-ba-ra-PA.KA[B.DU]-ga-a suhu“-bi hara-ab-ge-ge-in
“I (= Ninlil) will certainly consolidate for you the
throne which Enki has already given you as a present” ”ulgi R 87.
Note: sa∞g rig 7 here governs the dative (verbal infix [(e)ra]) instead of the directive—perhaps
in parallel with the following [ha-(e)ra-b-gege-n].
d
En-ki-ke 4 Mar-tu má“-an“e sa∞g-e-e“ mu-ni-rig 7 “Enki gave the cattle
as a gift to the Amurru (nomad)” EWO 249.
Summing up, sa∞g [rig] as a split of *“arik would be quite an
unusual type of borrowing. At least two arguments may be raised
against a—direct—Akkadian origin of the verb in question: (1) Why
was [sa∞g] chosen to represent the first syllable of alleged “arik, instead