文档介绍：INTRODUCTION TO SUMERIAN GRAMMAR
DANIEL A FOXVOG
LECTURER IN ASSYRIOLOGY (RETIRED)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY
Revised September 2009
CONTENTS
PREFACE 3
THE SUMERIAN WRITING SYSTEM 4
TABLE OF SYLLABIC SIGN VALUES 16
PHONOLOGY 18
NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES 23
THE NOMINAL CHAIN 28
PRONOUNS AND DEMONSTRATIVES 31
SUMMARY OF PERSONAL PRONOUN FORMS 38
THE ADNOMINAL CASES: GENITIVE AND EQUATIVE 39
THE COPULA 46
ADVERBS AND NUMERALS 51
THE ADVERBAL CASES 54
INTRODUCTION TO THE VERB 61
DIMENSIONAL PREFIXES 1: INTRODUCTION 69
DIMENSIONAL PREFIXES 2: DATIVE 73
DIMENSIONAL PREFIXES 3: COMITATIVE, ABLATIVE-INSTRUMENTAL, TERMINATIVE 78
CORE PREFIXES: ERGATIVE, LOCATIVE-TERMINATIVE, LOCATIVE 83
THE VENTIVE ELEMENT 90
RELATIVE CLAUSES: THE NOMINALIZING SUFFIX -a 95
PREFORMATIVES (MODAL PREFIXES) 102
THE IMPERATIVE 109
IMPERFECTIVE FINITE VERBS 117
PARTICIPLES AND THE INFINITIVE 127
APPENDIX: CHART OF VERBAL PREFIX CHAIN ELEMENTS 150
INDEX 151
EXERCISES 152
2
PREFACE
Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitatem
William of Ockham
This grammar is intended primarily for use in the first year of university study under
the guidance of a teacher who can describe the classic problems in greater detail, add
current alternative explanations for phenomena, help the student parse and understand
the many textual illustrations found throughout, and provide supplementary information
about the history of the language and the culture of early Mesopotamia. A few exercises
have been provided to pany study of the lessons, some artificial, others drawn from
actual texts. Both require vocabulary lookup from panion Elementary Sumerian
Glossary or its equivalent. pleting this intr