Akkadian Grammar Study Guide 002

Nouns

Technically the feminine endings are —um, —im, but the āt infix (see below) is perfectly regular.

Case

• nominative: subjects, nominal predicates
• genitive: possession, noun-noun modification, after prepositions
• accusative: direct object, adverbial expressions
• oblique: the combined genitive/accusative case is sometimes referred to as oblique

Gender

• There are two genders: masculine and feminine.
• Feminine is generally marked out by a t infix.
  • For phonological reasons, the t can be preceeded by an a when the base ends in two consonants. (See syllable rules in chapter 1.)
  • e.g. iltum, šarratum
• Exceptions:
  • Some nouns that look masculine are feminine and vice versa.
  • Some nouns that are masculine in the singular are feminine in the plural.
    • But all singular feminine nouns are feminine in the plural.
  • Some nouns are variable gender.
  • Masculine is the common plural.
  • Exceptions need to be memorized.

Number

• There are three numbers: singular, dual, plural.
• Singular
  • End in m (mimation)
• Dual
  • The dual indicates precisely two and is usully confined to natural pairs (eg, eyes)
  • Genitive and accusative have the same form
  • end in n (nunation)
  • Adjectives, verbs, and pronouns do not have dual forms (in OB).
  • Dual nouns have feminine plural agreement with adjectives and verbs (rarely take masculine plural).
• Plural
  • Genitive and accusative have the same form.
  • In the masculine, the ending is a macron-long version of the singular vowel ending. (um > ū, im > ī)
  • In the feminine, the t infix is always accompanied with a ā (-āt-)
  • In the feminine, end in m (mimation)
  • Some words occur only in plural.
  • “Collectives” are collective nouns that describe groups and can be construed in singular or plural (e.g. ṣābum: singular= worker, solder; collective= gang, troop)

Miscellaneous

• There is no definite or indefinite marker. Context determines.
• Final -m is called mimation
• Final -n is called nunation

Prepositions

• Most prepositions are two-syllable words ending in a short vowel.
• Nouns following prepositions are always in the genitive.

ša

• ša means “the one of”
• usually occurs in apposition to a preceeding noun
• the following noun appears in the genitive
• eg šarrum ša Bābilim (king of Babylon)

Independent Personal Pronouns

• Used in subjects of verbless clauses (see more uses in Chapter 3)

Verbless Clauses

• No being verb in Akkadian.

• Copulative sentences are formed by juxtaposing the subject and predicate.

• Called verbless or nominative clauses

• If subject is a noun, it stands at beginning of the clause.

• If subject is a pronoun, it stands at the end of the clause.

• Tense is determined by context.

  amātum ina ālim “The maidservants are/were/will be in the town.”

• Adverb (phrase) - Noun (phrase) occurs less frequently.

  ina libbim ša ālim nārum “In the center of the town (there) is a river.”

• With ša and a following genitive, verbless clauses represent simple possession.

  bītum ša iltim “The house is the goddess’s.”