SumerianGrammar

74 CHAPTER TWELVE
“inachevé” ( Jestin 1943, 209); “perfective” : “imperfective” (Steinkeller 1979, 54;
Jacobsen 1988, 174 with fn. 15); “standard construction” : “secondary construction”
(Black 2 1991, passim and spec. 130 f.); “¢am†u” : “marû” (Attinger 1993).
The ¢am†u variant provides the base for a participle in -a (most probably
not identical with the nominalizer [a], see 12.16): d Mes-lam-taè-a
“(the god) who has come out of the Meslam (sanctuary)”. It is,
furthermore, used in the transitive conjugation pattern 2b (12.7.3)
which most often corresponds to the Akkadian preterite iprus. It is
also used in the intransitive conjugation pattern 1 (12.7.1).
The marû variant is used to form a participle in -e(d), -(ed): eme
èd-dè-da-ni [ed-ed-ani] “while sticking out its tongue” Gudea Cyl.
B xiv 7. It is, furthermore, used in the transitive conjugation pattern
2a (12.7.2) which most often corresponds to the Akkadian iparras.
Note: A verb is transitive if it displays the two conjugation patterns 2a and 2b.
A large group of verbs have only one conjugation pattern which
may correspond to both Akkadian iprus and iparras. We traditionally
call these verbs intransitive. For a restricted number of intransitive
verbs, nevertheless, both a ¢am†u and a marû base are found,
and their distribution corresponds, once more, to Akkadian iprus and
iparras: ba-∞gen “I went away”, ì-du-un [i-du-(e)n] “I go”.
12.3. PLURAL VERBS
Apart from the ¢am†u : marû dichotomy, some verbs distinguish individual
bases for whether the ‘subject’ (with intr. verbs) or ‘object’
(with trans. verbs) is in the sg. or pl. If one person is registered to
“stay, live” somewhere, tìl is used; if there are two or more, the verb
will be se 12 .
12.4. VERBAL BASE ¢AM†U⁄MARÛ⁄SG.⁄PL. GRIDS
The Sumerian verbal base in ¢am†u/marû/sg./pl. grids.
As noted above (12.1) it proves practical to enter the different
attested base forms in a grid. We can offer eight variants. There
may, however, be more because—most probably—the correct readings
of some ambiguous cuneograms still escape us.