SumerianGrammar

CHAPTER ONE
THE SUMERIAN LANGUAGE
Für Olympia, die mir seit 1954 alle meine Arbeiten
geschrieben hat und die mir auf drei Kontinenten
gefolgt ist.
1.1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
Sumerian was called eme-ki-en-gi-ra “tongue of Kiengir (Sumer)” or
eme-gi 7 (-r) in Sumerian proper and li“àn ”umeri(m) “tongue of ”umeru”
in Akkadian.
The replacing of [“] by [s] in most modern languages (but not
Russian) has its analogue in the change of [“] for [s] in names of
the Hebrew bible.
Sumerian is characterized by the interaction of a word base (nominal,
verbal, other) which may be invariable or subject to variation
(e.g., change of vowel, reduction, extension), and an intricate system
of prefixed and suffixed morphemes. The word base itself is impenetrable
by other morphemes. Unlike Semitic, no infixes occur. Cf.
ha-ma-ab-“úm-mu [ha-m+a-b-“um-e] “he should give it to me” (WO
8, 173: 11b2): precative-to-me-it-base give-ergative (3 rd person sing.
person class). The number of prefixed morphemes varies between
zero and six for the verb, zero and one for the noun; the number
of suffixed morphemes between zero and three for the verb, zero
and three for the noun. Words of considerable length may be built
up that way, e.g., hu-mu-na-ni-ib-gi 4 -gi 4 “let him return it to him
there” (6 syllables, not comparable, however, with Akkadian
ittanablakkatùnikkunù“im “they will, over and again, revolt against you”,
10 syllables).
In both strings of morphemes, prefixed or suffixed, the sequence of
the individual elements is unchangeable. The morphemes are mostly
monofunctional, as is the rule in agglutinating languages, and very
rarely multifunctional as the morphemes of Semitic or Indo-European.
Instead of gender, Sumerian distinguishes a “person” and a “nonperson”
class. The case system includes an ergative, and the verbal