A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica, 21)

The purpose of this study is to present a substantial part of the corpus of the Akkadian language in the form of a grammar. This grammar has roughly the subdivisions customary in the field of Assyriology, but its organization has profited from the grammatical models and descriptions evolved in current linguistic research. A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian 4 Acknowledgments 6 Table of Contents 8 Abbreviations 14 Introduction 16 0.1 Purpose and scope 16 0.2 Organization 18 1. The Corpus 21 1.1 The language 21 1.2 Dialects 21 2. The Writing System 24 2.0 Preliminary statement 24 2.1 The script 24 2.1.1 Graph and referent 24 2.1.2 Graphotactics 25 2.2 Elements of the transliteration system 26 2.2.1. Determinatives 26 2.2.2 Word signs 27 2.2.3 Phonetic complements 27 2.2.4 Syllabic signs 28 2.3 Changes in writing habits 30 2.4 Problems caused by the writing system 31 3. Phonology 34 3.0 Basic assumptions 34 3.1 Phonemes 35 3.1.1 Prosodies 36 3.1.2 Configurative feature 36 3.1.3 Phones without phonemic status 36 3.2 Stress 39 3.3 Distinctive feature analysis 40 4. Phonotactics 43 4.0 Questions to be treated 43 4.1 Vocalic and consonantal length 43 4.1.1 Cluster of identical consonants 44 4.1.2 Clusters with length 44 4.2 Sequence of two vowels 47 4.2.1 Boundary between two vowels 48 4.3 Consonant clusters 50 4.3.1 Non-occurring clusters 51 4.3.2 Distinctive feature analysis 52 4.4 Resolving of clusters 52 4.4.1 Two consonants 53 4.4.2 Three consonants 53 5. Morphology 55 5.0 Morphemes 55 5.1 Morphophonemic alternations 56 5.2 Inflectional classes 57 5.3 The noun 57 5.3.1 Declensions 58 5.3.2 Nominal subclasses 59 5.3.3 Gender 60 5.3.4 Number 60 5.3.5 Case inflection 66 5.4 The verb 70 5.4.1 Personals 70 5.4.2 Mood 72 5.4.3 Root and stem 73 5.4.4 Tenses 75 5.4.5 Weak verbs 83 5.4.6 Stative and imperative 98 5.5 Pronouns 99 5.5.1 Inflectional classes to which "pronouns" belong 99 5.5.2 Pronominal inflection 100 5.5.3 Personal pronouns 101 5.5.4 Determinative pronoun and relative pronoun 103 5.6 Derivation 103 5.6.1 Prefixes 103 5.6.2 Infixes 104 5.6.3 Suffixes 104 5.7 Indeclinables 104 5.8 Clitics 105 5.9 Concord 105 6. Morphophonemic Alterations 106 6.0 Isolating morphophonemic change 106 6.1 Consonants for which morphophonemic change may be documented 107 6.1.1 /m/ 107 6.1.2 /n/ 108 6.1.3 /š/ 110 6.1.4 /t/ 111 6.1.5 /k/ 113 6.2 Non-morphophonemic changes 113 6.2.1 Historical change 114 6.2.2 Dialectal variation 115 6.2.3 Free variation 116 7. Phonotactic Alternations 118 7.0 Environments that determine alternants 118 7.1 Before the gender suffix {t} 118 7.1.1 Pattern 1 118 7.1.2 Pattern 2 118 7.1.3 Pattern 3 119 7.1.4 Pattern 4 120 7.1.5 Pattern 5 121 7.1.6 Pattern 6 121 7.1.7 Before feminine plural 122 7.2 Before terminal juncture 124 7.2.1 Other attestations of terminal forms 125 7.3 Bound form 126 7.3.1 An alternant of the bound form of adjectives 126 Appendix 129 1. A generative statement of the case inflection 129 2. A generative statement of the inflected verb 136 Glossary of Akkadian Forms 138 Glossary of Selected Linguistic Terms 154 Bibliography 155 Back Matter 157 Paperback. Slight wear on edges of text and cover is worn on edges, corners and both ends of spine. Otherwise VG