Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian.
- 1 online resource (212 pages)
Intro -- Introduction -- 1 Sumerian in a Nutshell -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 The Sumerian Nominal and Verbal Template -- 2 Non-verbal Predicates in Sumerian -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Copular Clauses: the Most Important Characteristics -- 2.3 Copula Dropping: Non-verbal Predicates without a Copula -- 3 A Typology of Sumerian Copular Clauses -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Classification of Copular Clauses in Linguistics -- 3.3 Copular Clauses in Sumerian -- 3.4 The Typology of Copular Clauses in Practice -- 3.5 Summary and Conclusions -- 4 Attributive Copular Biclausal Constructions -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Attributive CBCs and the Paratactic Relativization Strategy -- 4.3 Attributive CBCs and Appositions -- 4.4 Attributive CBCs in Which the CC Functions as Reason or Concessive Clause -- 4.5 Attributive CBCs Containing CCs with Left-dislocated Possessors -- 4.6 The Copula Functioning as Standard Marker -- 5 Specificational Copular Biclausal Constructions -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 The Origin of the Sumerian Cleft Construction -- 5.3 Copula or Focus Marker? -- 6 Subordinate Clauses Followed by a Copula -- 6.1 Introduction -- 6.2 Thetic Sentences in Sumerian -- 6.3 Sentences with Polarity Focus -- 6.4 Summary and Conclusions -- 7 Summary and Outlook -- References -- Index of Quoted Texts -- Index of Subjects -- Abbreviations in the morphological glossings -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Sumerian in a Nutshell -- 2 Non-verbal Predicates in Sumerian -- 3 A Typology of Sumerian Copular Clauses -- 4 Attributive Copular Biclausal Constructions -- 5 Specificational Copular Biclausal Constructions -- 6 Subordinate Clauses Followed by a Copula -- 7 Summary and Outlook -- References -- Index of Quoted Texts -- Index of Subjects.
This work is the first comprehensive description of Sumerian constructions involving a copula. Applying the terminology of modern descriptive linguistics, it is accessible to both linguists and sumerologists. Using around 400 fully glossed examples, the book provides an analysis of all uses of the copula and provides a description of the morphological and syntactic devices used to mark identificational, polarity and sentence focus in Sumerian.