SumerianGrammar

CHAPTER SIX
ADJECTIVES
Adjectives accompany substantives which they qualify; or, as a predicate,
they occur with the verbal copula: udug-hul “evil demon”;
é-gibil “new house”.
Once a substantive + adjective compound has been formed it is
impenetrable and any particle has to follow the complex as a whole:
ses-gal-ra “to the (big brother =) school overseer”.
An apparent exception occurs when a substantive is followed by
the individualizing plural element didli (see 5.3.4). Here, dedli virtually
also functions as an adjective as it is in origin, but it is closer
to the substantive: bàd-dedli-gal-gal “the individual big fortresses”.
There has been much debate on whether adjectives should be
considered a part of speech of their own (cf. 4.2. (1b)). Gragg 1968,
91, proposed to classify them as a sub-category of the verb, by which
he is—tentatively—followed by Thomsen 1984, 64. Attinger 1993,
148 f., distinguishes between primary and secondary adjectives, the
criterion being whether or not they may be provided with the suffixed
particle [a]. Krecher 1978, 376–403 (esp. 382–85), had proposed
determinant force to -a: zi(-d) “true”, zi-da “right (not left)”. Formally,
zi-da is indistinguishable from du 11 -ga “said”, i.e., the so-called ¢am†u
participle of the verb (see 12.14.2). Krecher’s study was taken up by
Klein 1993, 81–98, “The suffix of determination /a/”.
We owe to Black 2003 the first extensive study of the Sumerian
adjective, and he offers morphological and syntactical criteria for the
identification of adjectives. Much of the following is based on his
study.
The respective criteria are not applicable to each and every adjective,
but rather apply in a variety of situations: ability to reduplicate
(shared with substantives and verbs); suffix -a (shared with the ¢am†u
participle of the verb); negation with nu- (shared with verbs); position
after a substantive; “nominal predicate of copular clauses”.
Black sees no “watertight” category of adjective and, therefore,
submits ‘adjectives’ to scrutiny in terms of both their formation and