Sumerian language

Spoken in

• Language isolate Sumerian

-

Sux

Sux

The Sumerian language is the language of the ancient Near Eastern culture people of the Sumerians. She is not related to any known language, so they are called isolated. Sumerian was spoken in southern Mesopotamia to about 1700 BC. In addition, it was after it was extinct as an everyday language used in Mesopotamia until the 1st century BC as a religious, literary and scientific language. The Sumerian is one of the first languages ​​- if not the first - was developed for a font ( around 3200 BC), thus includes their written records for a period of about 3000 years.

Important centers of the Sumerian culture were the city-states of Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Nippur, Eridu and Girsu.

• 4.1 people and property class
• 4.2 plurals
• 4.3 ergativity
• 4.4 Kasusbildung
• 4.5 enclitic possessive pronouns
• 4.6 Noun Phrase
• 4.7 Examples of Sumerian nominal chains
• 4.8 Noun Phrase structure of other languages ​​for comparison
• 4.9 Self-employed personal pronouns

• 5.1 The 14 positions or slots of a Sumerian verbal form
• 5.2 Tempus aspect
• 5.3 Verbal bases and verb classes (slot 11)
• 5.4 pronominal suffixes in slot 13
• 5.5 pronominal prefixes in slot 10
• 5.6 Present - future tense marker / - ed / in slot 12
• 5.7 conjugation of the present tense future tense ( imperfective )
• 5.8 conjugation of the past tense ( perfective )
• 5.9 Summary of conjugations
• 5:10 split ergativity and Sumerian verbal system
• 5.11 adverbial prefixes in slot 6-9
• 5:12 pronominal prefixes in slot 5
• 5:13 Mediumpräfix / ba / in slot 4
• 5:14 Ventivpräfix / mu / in slot 3
• 5:15 Koordinationspräfix / nga / in slot 2
• 5.16 Modalpräfixe in slot 1
• 5:17 Prosthetic / i /
• 5.18 Examples of the verbal form

• 7.1 grammar
• 7.2 lexicon
• 7.3 linguistic relationship
• 7.4 texts

Sumerian - an isolated ancient Near Eastern language

The oldest written language

At least since about 3500 BC, the Sumerians played a crucial role in the transition to high culture, especially in the development of an acceptable economic and administrative documents by about 3200 BC ( finds in Uruk IVa) in southern Mesopotamia. This is the world's oldest writing development, only the first Egyptian hieroglyphs rich closer to the age of the Sumerian writing. Whether there was a relationship between the two by far the oldest writing systems is an unsolved question of Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Around 3200 BC, they went over to the patterns that were inscribed on clay counters to scratch into larger lumps of clay and fitted with additional symbols. So named after the shape of their characters created by the pressing a stylus into the soft -edged tone - - From this archaic form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script developed in a few centuries to full bloom. It is obtained on clay tablets and other carriers such as statues and buildings that were discovered during archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia. This document adapted the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Eblaiter, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians and Urartians each for their own language.

Originally, the Sumerian cuneiform script was developed as ideographic or logographic writing. Each character corresponds to a word, and these characters were initially seen clearly, which term was meant. Within a few centuries we additionally developed after the rebus principle a form of syllable representation in which many characters one or more phonetic syllable values ​​(usually V, KV, VK, KVK) were assigned (V for vowel, K for consonant ). It developed a logo graphic- phonological writing.

The example of the following short text, a brick inscription of Prince Gudea of Lagash city ( 2130 BC), the terms of the transliteration of the cuneiform and their decomposition are to be illustrated in the grammatical analysis.

Remarks: Digir and ki are here determinatives, they are highly placed in the analysis; pa.te.si and šir.bur.la are diri - compounds.

Translation: For Inana, the mistress of the world, his mistress, Gudea, Prince of Lagash and the City Hero ( uncertain) of Ĝatumdu, has built his house of Girsu.

The Sumerian writing and issues of transcription and transliteration are not further discussed in this article, reference is made to the article cuneiform.

The Sumerian- Akkadian coexistence

Throughout the 3rd millennium Sumerian played the lead role in southern Mesopotamia - interrupted only in the time of the Semitic kingdom of Akkad ( 2350-2200 BC). The Sumerians had, however, since about 2600 BC increasingly Semitic competition ( the Akkadians, first in northern Mesopotamia ) deal, where you should be less assume a hostile position of the two communities, as a largely peaceful running of assimilation and integration process which ultimately led to a coexistence of these peoples and their languages ​​( Sumerian- Akkadian linguistic convergence the area of mutual linguistic influence, see Edzard (2003) ). At least since 2000 BC - after another already in the Ur III period - lost Sumerian as a spoken language slowly its importance, the Sumerian ethnic element was gradually very - even by further immigration - growing Semitic population. Around 1700 BC, not later than 1600 BC, Sumerian ended as a spoken language. As a language of the cult of science, literature and official royal inscriptions, it took a long time use. The last Sumerian texts are taken from the final stages of cuneiform period ( around 100 BC ).

Periods of speech and text types

One divides the three thousand year history of the Sumerian language in the following periods:

Dialects and sociolects

Although a later lexical text a number of dialects (better: sociolects ) lists of Sumerian, but in addition to the normal language of eme -gi (r ), only the sociolect eme - sal is palpable, even if only in spätsumerischer literary tradition. This form of language was then used mainly when females come into literary texts to speak, while narrative parts and the speeches of men are written in normal language. The main differences to the normal language is a partial phonetic transformation of the word roots and morphological form elements, but also the use not in the main dialect occurring words (eg mu -ud -na instead Nital " husband ", mu- tin instead of ki- sikil "virgin" ).

The rediscovery of the Sumerian

Around the time of any knowledge of the Sumerian and cuneiform was lost. Unlike the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians, whose work is widely documented in the history of classical antiquity, there is in these reports no evidence of the existence of the Sumerians. With the decipherment of cuneiform since the beginning of the 19th century first three languages ​​were discovered: the Semitic Akkadian (in its Babylonian form), the Indo-European Old Persian and Elamite ( a language isolate in the southwest of present-day Iran ). Was recognized only later under the Babylonian texts a fourth language (after Akkadian Sumeru ) called Jules Oppert in 1869 as the first as " Sumerian ". The self-designation of the Sumerians for their language was eme -gi (r ), which might be " native language " means; their land they called Kengir. Existence and naming of the language, however, were still a long time controversial and could be according to findings of bilingual texts in Nineveh, and by the copious text finds in Lagash is properly until 20 years later by the archaeologist Ernest de Sarzec and Léon Heuzey by François Thureau - Dangin. The latter opened up the Sumerian language, finally, with his work " The Sumerian and Akkadian Royal Inscriptions" (1907 ) for scientific research.

Relationships with other languages

There have been numerous attempts to set the Sumerian with other languages ​​or language families in a family relationship. The Dravidian, Caucasian, Altaic and Uralic languages ​​, Basque, Tibetan, Old Persian, and even the Austro-Asiatic and Bantu languages ​​were considered. In the current debate on macro families Sumerian for some researchers is considered as a candidate for the ent - Caucasian macro family that the Sino Tibetan, the North Caucasus, the jenisseischen and Na - Dene languages ​​, in addition to other than isolated consideration languages ​​Burushaski, Basque and just should include Sumerian. Recently there is also isolated researchers who want it attributed rather the nostra matic macro family.

None of these proposals - not even the ent - Caucasian macro family, much less the nostra tables hypothesis - has been able to convince the scientific community. Thus, the Sumerian is still largely viewed as an isolated language. If there should have been in prehistoric times with the Sumerian related languages ​​, they have not been written down and thus lost for a comparison.

Predecessors and neighbors of the Sumerians

Whether the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia autochthonous or - perhaps during the 4th millennium - have immigrated, can not be decided with certainty until today. It is very difficult to bring any new outbreak of the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia with certain archaeological horizons or developments in context. The older Sumerian language research (eg, Falkenstein ) assumed that the Sumerians were in southern Mesopotamia not autochthonous, but immigrated there in the 4th millennium and have superimposed a resident Vorbevölkerung. This was on a so-called pre-Sumerian language substrate ( sometimes called " protoeuphratisch " ) moored. From this layer should not Sumerian explainable towns names like Ur, Uruk ( Unug ), Larsa and Lagash, names of gods as Nanse and Gatumdu, as well as agricultural terms as apin " plow ", Engar " plowman ", ulušin " emmer beer," nimbar " date tree " nukarib " gardener ", taskarin " boxwood " ( from latin taxus ) and names in the field of metal processing such SIMUG " blacksmith " and tibira " metal workers come ", which obviously raises some issues for the state of civilization of the Sumerians in migration to Mesopotamia.

Today, a " vorsumerische " is interpretation of the above examples not considered safe because of the lack of precise knowledge of how a "Sumerian " or might have looked like " nichtsumerisches " word around in the first half of the 3rd millennium. In particular, in early research were polysyllabic words as " unsumerisch ", which is now regarded as unsuitable criterion. To this end, G. Rubio ( 1999): "There is not a monolithic substrate, which would have left his mark in Sumerian Lexicon. Everything you can discover, is a complex web of borrowings, the direction of which can often be difficult to determine. "

With the Semitic Akkadians already mentioned the Sumerians were received by and by a symbiosis, which of course also had reciprocal effects on the two languages. This relates to the word order of sentences, phonetics, the case system, especially mutual Wortentlehnungen: about 7 % of the Akkadian vocabulary are borrowings from Sumerian, but also the Sumerian had in the later periods of a three to four percent Akkadian Share ( Edzard (2003) ).

In addition, the Elamites in the area Khuzistan are especially to be mentioned in the Persian Gulf (now Southwest Iran), whose culture and economy has been around since the beginning of the 3rd millennium, influenced by the Sumerian civilization. This also had an impact on the Elamite writing systems because in addition to in-house developments were also adopted and adapted forms of writing in Mesopotamia. A reverse influence of Elam on Sumer is barely detectable.

An influence of " foreign nations" - Lulubäer, Gutians and others who Sumer phases in the 3rd millennium dominated - the Sumerian language is also not tangible, not on that, because the languages ​​of the ethnic groups are virtually unknown.

Type of language

This summary of the Sumerian language focuses on the nominal and verbal morphology, it only covers the standard grammatical phenomena, exceptions and special cases should be noted only sporadically. The presentation is mainly based on the grammars of DO Edzard (2003) and G. Zólyomi ( 2005).

In presenting the Sumerian forms the reference to the Graphemvarianten (different cuneiform signs ) is omitted and instead a normalized form without accents, indices and phonetic supplements used ( including Zólyomi 2005). This method facilitates non- wedge scribes much understanding of the linguistic aspects, at issue here especially.

The Sumerian can be briefly characterized as agglutinative split Ergativsprache with grammatical gender ( people and property class). (Split ergativity means that the Ergativkonstruktion - it is explained below - is not consistent, but in certain contexts also found the well-known from European languages ​​nominative - accusative construction. ) The verb is at the end of a sentence depends the position of the other parts of a sentence on various factors, nominal and verb phrase are closely linked.

There is no occurrence of the word types noun versus verb, the same strains ( roots) - many are monosyllabic - can be used for both functions. For example, say dug both " talk " and " speak ". The function is the function markers ( morphemes that mark grammatical functions ) and the position in the sentence clearly, the tribes remain unchanged. There is in particular no infixes (such as in Akkadian ).

The ambiguity ( homophony ) many syllables of the cuneiform used for the Sumerian might suggest that Sumerian was a tonal language, meaning differentiating looked at the different pitches. However, on the other hand is the fact that there are no other tonal languages ​​in the Middle East. It may also be that a larger Phonemreichtum is covered as of today reconstructable from the Scriptures of the deficits this writing system.

Since the Sumerian died out a long time and has been passed down in an often not clearly interpretable writing system, phonology and morphology can only be approximately described, which also may explain why it (especially the Präfixsystem of the finite verb ) is still very different theories about the verbal morphology.

Phonemes

The phoneme inventory - as far as the scripture recognizable - pretty easy. The four vowels / a, e, i, u / are 16 consonants opposite:

The phoneme / r / (or / dr / ) is read by B. Jagersma and G. Zólyomi as aspirated dent old affricate [ ʦ ʰ ]. Since it appears as [r ] in Akkadian loanwords, this analysis is disputed.

Many scientists (among Edzard (2003) ) assume the existence of an / h / phoneme from. However, its exact pronunciation, whether laryngal or pharyngeal, is as unclear as the question of other phonemes.

Nominal morphology

Personal injury and property class

The Sumerian has a grammatical gender, a " class of people " (abbreviation PK or HUM) and a " property class ", more precisely "non- person class " (abbreviation SK or NONHUM ), differs. Animals usually include the " property class ". This two-tier system has an impact among others in the conjugation and formation of the plural. The grammatical gender is not formally be considered a word.

Plural formation

The Sumerian has two numbers, the unmarked singular and plural one. The plural is marked only with the nouns of persons class, the plural marker ( morpheme to mark the plural ) is optional and is / - ene / after vowels / ne /. For numerical attributes, the mark is omitted in the property class of nouns plural remains unmarked.

The plural can - in addition to the marker - are formed by double reduction of the noun or the trailing adjective attribute. In nouns of property, the class attribute can hi.a (actually " mix " participle of hi) take over the function of a pluralization.

Examples of plural formation

Ergativity

Sumerian is a Ergativsprache. It has different case for the agent (the subject ) of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb. The first case is called ergative, absolutive the second, it is used in addition to the object ( the undergoer ) of transitive verbs.

• Ergative > agent (subject) of transitive verbs
• Absolutive 'subject of intransitive verbs and direct object ( undergoer ) of transitive verbs

Examples of Ergativkonstruktion ( the verb forms are explained in the section Verbal morphology)

Since not continuously this Ergativkonstruktion, but partly also the nominative - accusative construction is used in Sumerian, it is called a "split ergativity " or "split ergativity ".

Ergativische construction and nominative - accusative construction compared

Kasusbildung

The case is both the noun highlighted in Sumerian ( suffixes ) and the verb ( by prefixes ), a phenomenon that is referred to in linguistics as "double marking". In the earlier research, the case was defined solely on the basis of nominal marking. Thus one arrives at a figure of nine case, of which the nouns of class seven persons and the property of the class eight train. The Kasusmarker ( morphemes to the case marking) are identical in both the singular and plural, and at the end of a noun phrase (see below ), especially behind the plural marker / - ene /.

The case marking means Verbalpräformativen is complicated by phenomena of contraction rules in conjunction with the effects of the syllabary that change, sometimes significantly, the Kasusmarker. It can not be described in further detail (see Falkenstein 1978, Edzard 2003), especially in this particular area the grammatical study of the Sumerian is still quite in the river.

According to a recent, inter alia, of Zólyomi held view (see web link Zólyomi 2004 ) are to be used for the definition of the nominal case in Sumerian as verbal marker alike. A case would thereafter, each occurring combination of the nominal marker with a verbal marker. After this counting results for the total number of Sumerian case a significantly higher number than 9

The nominal case marking of nouns lugal "king" and GE's "tree" are as follows:

Example: declination by Kasusmarker

The genitive attribute is usually followed his rain ( modifier ), so

• Eg Dumu - to -ak " the daughter ( Dumu ) of the ( sky god ) On"

Enclitic possessive pronouns

Constructions such as " my mother " are expressed by pronominal possessive enclitics in Sumerian. These enclitics are:

Examples of Possessivbildung

The examples show that the possessive enclitic precedes the Kasusmarker. -to, for example, before / a / to -za ( Example 3 ).

Noun Phrase

For all noun phrases ( in the Sumerology also called nominal chains) there is a well-defined position sequence. The order is:

Of course, not all positions must be filled. The positions ( 2), ( 4), ( 5) and (8) can in turn be occupied by complex phrases, so that multiple nesting and very complex structures can arise.

The individual positions of a noun phrase can be staffed as follows:

In addition, a so-called " anticipatory genitive construction " is possible in which the phrase genitive ( position 4), the other noun phrase is preceded, however, by a possessive resumptives is repeated ( at position 6). An example of this is Example 11 in the following overview.

Examples of Sumerian nominal chains

The digits before the constituents refer to the position in the chain. Note the nesting [ ... ].

The examples indicate Nominal chains can be nested and complex. The high regularity of the ranking, however, is easier to interpret.

Noun phrase structure of other languages ​​for comparison

These examples ( Nos. 1-5 are from Edzard 2003) show that in agglutinative languages ​​very different types of noun phrases are possible, which relates to the order of their elements. In all the above and most other agglutinating languages ​​, however, is considered that the sequence of morphemes is subjected to a fixed rule.

Self-employed personal pronouns

The independent personal pronouns is in Sumerian:

The 1st and 2nd person plural is replaced by periphrastic constructions. The independent personal pronouns has no Ergativform, so it has the same form as the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs. This is a reason to talk of Split - ergativity in Sumerian.

Verbal morphology

The construction of the finite Sumerian verb is extremely complex, since besides the usual Tempus subject markings modal distinctions, indications of the direction of the plot, back references are made ​​to accommodate the noun phrase and pronominal objects of the action in the verb form. So you can talk in Sumerian by a polysynthetic verbal education. ( The basic structure of the Sumerian verbal form has typologically very similar to the verbal construction in Burushaski. Distribution of functions of pronominal suffixes and prefixes with transitive and intransitive verbs is almost identical. However, the tense system of the Sumerian is much easier. )

Similar to the nominal chain ( see above) the position of the respective morphemes is determined exactly. Difficulties makes the practical analysis yet, since extensive contraction and assimilation rules and graphical features are observed. Many ' weak ' formants as / e / can also be simply omitted.

The presentation of the verbal morphology follows Zólyomi 2005.

The 14 positions or slots of a Sumerian verbal form

Prior to the verbal base ( Verbstammform, see below) ten different prefixes, up to three suffixes occur behind the verbal base, the Sumerian verb has so - including the verbal base - 14 positions at which morphemes can be used, which carry a specific meaning function from which then gives the overall meaning of the verb form. Such positions are also called "slots" - a term used in the grammatical theory of Tagmemik. Of course, there is no concrete Sumerian verb form, in which all positions or slots were occupied. Some occupations are mutually exclusive.

The following table lists the slots are listed Sumerian verbal forms and individually explained in the next sections, with the result statement for reasons of ease of access is not identical with the sequence of slots.

The slots of the Sumerian verb

When "Slot 0 " could be the prosthetic prefix / i / understand that is always used when otherwise only a single consonant would be available as a prefix, the word would begin with two consonants or when otherwise there is no prefix, the verb form but should be finite.

Tempus aspect

The Sumerian has no absolute tenses, but a relative tense - aspect system. The " present -future " (also called " imperfective " ) refers to - relative to a reference point - equal or not nachzeitige completed actions, the " past tense " (also called " perfective " ) suppresses premature completed facts from. State verbs form the past tense only.

The tenses present - future tense and past tense are in the indicative by different affixes in slots 10 and 13, the shape of the verbal base (slot 11) and the present - future tense marker / - ed / in slot 12 distinguished. Not all three labeling options appear in a form.

Verbal bases and verbal classes (slot 11)

The Sumerian verbs can be divided into four classes according to the form of their verbal bases ( Verbstammformen ):

• Immutable verbs: these verbs have the same basis for the present - future tense and past tense ( about 50 % -70 % of all verbs)
• Reduplicating verbs: The base is reduplicated in the present tense, future tense, while various changes occur.
• Widening Verbs: The Present - Future - base will be expanded over the past tense basis by a consonant.
• Suppletive verbs: the present - future tense used a completely different basis than the past tense.

In addition, in some verbs in pluralischem agent or subject another base than singularischem agent or subject is being used. This leads to four principle " stem-forms " of the verbal base, as is evident in the following examples.

Examples of the verbal base

By choosing different verbal bases two functions can thus be expressed as:

Pronominal suffixes in slot 13

There are two forms of pronominal suffixes that are used in slot 13 ​​( series A and B ), but they differ only in the third person:

In present -future the pronominal suffixes of the Series A denote the agent of a transitive verb and the series B the subject of an intransitive verb, which is a / ed / gets prefixed in slot 12 ( until the end of the 3rd millennium in the rule).

In the preterite pronominal suffixes only the row B are used. They feature the intransitive subject and the object of transitive verbs, as well as the plural agent.

Pronominal prefixes in slot 10

The pronominal prefixes in slot 10 denote the agent of the past tense ( it only the singular forms used, see conjugation of the past tense ), and the direct object in the present - future tense. The 1st and 2nd person forms are not used in the plural:

Present - future tense marker / - ed / in slot 12

If the verbal base has no particular form for the present -future, differs only / ed / in the slot 12, the intransitive present - future tense of intransitive past tense.

Conjugation of the present tense future tense ( imperfective )

This results in the present - future tense conjugation following: (PF = present -future )

Conjugation of the past tense ( perfective )

The Pronominalpräfixe of the slot 13, Series B ( forms see above ) indicate in the past tense, the subject of the intransitive and the direct object of the transitive verb.

The agent of a transitive verb in the past tense is in the singular represented by the forms of the pronominal prefix in slot 10 ( see forms above), in the plural also by the singular prefixes in slot 10 and additionally by the plural suffixes of the slot 13, Series B ( forms see above). In this case ( pluralischer agent ) can not be labeled a pronominal object because the slot 13 ​​is occupied. Thus, for the past tense conjugation following:

Summary of conjugations

The following table shows schematically the Sumerian conjugation verbs in the present tense -future tenses (PF) and the past tense dar.

Split ergativity and Sumerian verbal system

The present tense, future tense used in the 1st and 2nd person nominative - accusative in fact a system, as agent and intransitive subject with the same pronominal suffixes are referred to in slot 13, while the prefixes of the slot 10, mark the object. In the third person, there is a ergativisches system with different affixes for agent and intransitive subject.

The past tense used throughout a system ergativisches: intransitive subject and direct object use the same pronominal suffixes of the series B in slot 13

The adverbial prefixes in slot 6-9

In slots 6-9 adverbial prefixes can occur to afford the adverbial additions to the storyline.

In the slots 8 and 9 can only ever be realized one of the two variants. Before Lokativpräfix / ni /, the Komitativpräfix to / be di /, intervocalic ( between vowels ) the Ablativpräfix ra to / /.

Pronominal prefixes in slot 5

The pronominal prefixes in slot 5 refer to the first adverbial prefix in slots 6-9 and resumed by them. They are:

When using these prefixes there are many exceptions and special cases, some prefixes of the slots 3 and 4 are used as a substitute. Before dating and Direktivpräfix is in the 1.sg. a form of Ventivpräfixes / mu / (see below Slot 2). As a replacement for the missing prefix of 3.sg. Property class is the Mediumpräfix / ba / (see below slot 4). Before the prefixes / jr /, / nn /, / nne / occurs in initial position of a prosthetic ( prefix ) / i /.

Mediumpräfix / ba / in slot 4

The " Mediumpräfix " / ba / in slot 4 expresses that the action the grammatical subject or his interests directly affected. Is the secondary function of the / ba / substituted for the prefix in pronominal slot 5 in the 3.sg. SK ( last example ).

Examples for Mediumpräfix / ba /

Ventivpräfix / mu / in slot 3

The " Ventivpräfix " refers to a movement toward the action on the location of the reported facts or a verbal complement. Before the dative prefix (slot 6) or direktiv prefix (slot 9) it acts in the 1st sg. as pronominal prefix (replacement for slot 5). His forms are

• / m / before a vowel, before / b / and immediately before the verbal base ( / mb / will / mm assimilated / and finally / m / shortened);
• In all other cases it is / mu /, where the / can u / assimilate to the vowel of the following syllable.

Koordinationspräfix / nga / in slot 2

This prefix is ​​prefixed to the past verbal form a sibling chain of verbal forms and has the meaning " and ", ie a so-called set coordinator.

The Modalpräfixe in slot 1

In slot 1 are the " Negationspräfix ", the " Sequenzpräfix " or the actual " Modalpräfixe ".

The Negationspräfix ( Verneinungspräfix ) indicative ( and of infinite ) verb forms is / nu /, the / u / can be assimilated to the vowel of the following syllable. Before the syllables / ba / and / bi / is the Negationspräfix / la / and / li /.

The Sequenzpräfix / u / presses the posteriority the verbal form in comparison to the previously described actions of ("and then ..."). / u / can be assimilated to the vowel of the next syllable.

Seven prefixes in slot 1 describe the modality of action, so modify the basic meaning of the verb neutral. In this case, both the reality of the facts statement be modified ( " epistemic " modality: sure, probably, maybe, not sure ... ), or describes what is done or should not be done ( " deontic " modality ).

Modalpräfixe in slot 1

Prosthetic / i /

The prosthetic ( prefix ) prefix ì - always occurs when otherwise only a single consonant would be available as a prefix, the word would begin with two consonants or no prefix is ​​present, but the verb is supposed to be finite.

Examples of verbal education

The verbal forms in the Morphemzerlegung for the individual components, the number of slots is adjusted. (Slot 0 for the prosthetic / ì / ).

Explanation of abbreviations:

Other forms

For the preparation of other verbal forms ( imperative, infinite forms ), the use of other parts of speech ( pronouns, numerals, conjunctions ) and especially the Sumerian syntax is referred to the literature cited.