reduplication in stative verbs expresses intensity (“very”) but in dynamic verbs repeti-
tion (“again and again”) or continuation (“continuously”).LEXICAL EXPANSION
The distinction between function and content words corresponds broadly to one made
between closed and open word classes, that is, between word classes which rarely admit
new members and classes which are more generous in terms of lexical expansion.
General discrepancies in this correspondence involve interjections, often willing to
adopt new onomatopoeic forms, and numbers, extending in principle to infinity, both
therefore often being open classes of function words. A discrepancy more specific to
Sumerian is that its adverbs and adjectives appear to be closed classes of content words,
and that even its verb class is to some degree limited in terms of lexical expansion. Its
nouns are, however, more typical, being an open class of content words.Multiword verbs
Although Sumerian does have many more verbs than other types of word, nouns aside,
the language also favors a strategy of expressing new verbal meanings by combining
nouns with verbs in what are termed multiword constructions. The nouns often refer
to a part of the body, but are semantically bleached of their physical associations, and
they occur in particular with the verbs akand dug 4 , both of which have a meaning such
as “to do” (the semantic range of dug 4 includes “to say,” probably the verb’s original
meaning given that it is written with the sign KA which also represents other words
associated with speech). As in English (to lend a hand, that is to help), “hand” (ˇus )
occurs often in such constructions, examples being ˇu dugs 4 “to tend,” ˇu dagˆal dugs 4 “to
provide generously” (dagˆalbeing the adjective “broad”), and ˇu pel-las 2 dug 4 “to
desecrate” (pel-la 2 being the verbal adjective “defiled”). As these examples suggest
(“to do the hand” tosomething rather than “to tend” something), one consequence
of such multiword constructions is a high incidence of non-direct objects in Sumerian.
Other verbs also occur in multiword constructions, the semantic load then being
distributed more equally between the noun and the verb. Some such cases may be
idiomatic usages, for example si(“horn”) sa 2 (“to equalize”) translates less literally as “to
bring order.” However, some verbs again have a semantically appropriate body-part
noun as their direct object – for example, gˆiri 3 (“foot”) is used in relation to movement
(gˆiri 3 gub“to step out,” literally “to place the foot”); igi(“eye”) in relation to sight (igi
duh
̆
“to see,” literally “to loosen the eyes”); and ˇags 4 (“heart”) in relation to emotions
(sˇag 4 dab 5 “to be angry,” literally “to seize the heart”). Most of these constructions are
equivalent to one verb in Akkadian and occasionally in the literary manuscripts from
eighteenth-century schools there are instances of the multiword noun being incor-
porated with the verb to create a compound base that corresponds to the single
Akkadian word (si-sa 2 “to horn-equalize,” Akkadian esˇe ̄ru).
Compound nouns
It is compounding that dominates the formation of new nouns in Sumerian. Most
of these compounds are structured like the language’s noun phrase, that is, the
compound’s head begins the compound and is followed by its modifiers. This can–– The Sumerian language ––