The Elamite class marker system revisited Marc Bavant Introduction (1/2) There seems to exist nominal “class” markers in Elamite Noun-noun and noun-verb class agreement is used to perform various functions The descriptions of the Elamite class marker system ● Are not fully consistent with one another, ● Mix observation with conjecture Outline of the presentation ● Typical description sketch ● Class, person, Suffixaufnahme ● The alleged functions of class markers and the actual data ● Is the reconstructed system plausible? p. 2 Introduction (2/2) Main literature ● Grammatical sketches: Labat (1951), Windfuhr (2006), Stolper (2008) ● Detailed: Reiner (1969), Grillot-Susini (1987), Khačikjan (1998) ● Elamite sources: Quintana Cifuentes (2001), Hinz & Koch (1987) Important clues about the language ● Periodisation OE (IIIrd millenium), ME (IInd mill.), NE, AE (Ist mill.) ● Possible dialectal segmentation (Khačikjan 1998:3) ● The Dravidian hypothesis ● Babylonian and OP borrowings ➢ taayaušmi tarma aštu for OP dahyāušmaiy duruvā ahatiy ● Troubles with the writing system ➢ Homophony / polyphony of signs ➢ Many ways to cut a word into syllabic signs ➢ No word divider ➢ Reconstructions ➢ Alphabetisation system used here p. 3 Typical description sketch of Elamite p. 4 Typical description sketch of Elamite (1/8) Windfuhr (2006) ● “The fundamental determinant in both nominal and verbal morphology is the opposition between two genders: animate (person, human and divine), and inanimate (things, concepts). It is marked by personal pronouns, so-called classifiers, and a set of finite endings. Animate gender has three classes: first person (“locutive”); second person (“allocutive”); third person (“delocutive”), and distinguishes two numbers: singular and plural. The delocutive inanimate gender does not mark plural in either nouns or verbs.” Notice: there is no real case category, but... ● An embryonic accusative case for personal pronouns ● Several postpositions ● Development of a genitive case, esp. in AE p. 5 Typical description sketch of Elamite (2/8) Class markers Animate Inanimate ● “Class”: generic term to encompass 1 SG -k animacy, person, number (contrary to 2 SG -t Windfuhr) -me / -Ø ● -t and -n are dialectal (?) or historical 3 SG -r / -Ø (?) variants of -me PL -p Lexical function of class markers ● Agent and inhabitant nouns ➢ lipa- (serve) → lipa-r (servant, subject), lipa-p (servants) ➢ men (crown) → men-ir (sovereign) ➢ hinduš (India) → hinduš-p (Indians) ● Abstract nouns ➢ sunki- (king) → sunki-me (kingship) ➢ lipa- (serve) → lipa-me (service, servitude (Reiner)) p. 6 Typical description sketch of Elamite (3/8) Syntactic functions of class agreement ● Well attested in OE and ME, vestigial in later stages ● Attributive (or possessive) function ➢ men-ir (sovereign), Hatamti (Elam) → men-ir Hatamti-r ➢ nap-ir (god), riša- (great) → nap-ir riša-r (Reiner) ➢ taki-me (life), u (I) → taki-me u-me ➢ rutu (wife), hanik (beloved) → [ taki-me [ [ rutu hanik ] u ]-ri ]-me ➢ sunki- (king) → sunki-p sunki-me-p (Labat 1951, “les rois du royaume”) ● Appositive function ➢ u (I), sunki- (king) → u... sunki-k “I, king” (Reiner 1969:100) ➢ u sunki-k Anzan Šušun-ka “I, king of Anzan and Susa” (Windfuhr) ➢ sunki-r pit-ir aak tar-ir “the king, enemy or allied” ● Predicative function ➢ u (I), sunki- (king) → u... sunki-k “I am king” (Reiner 1969:95) ● And some possible others... p. 7 Typical description sketch of Elamite (4/8) Sketch of the verbal system ● Necessary to see how nominal classes interact with verbs ● Verbal categories ➢ Tense-aspect: imperfective / perfective No real tense, but past / non-past opposition linked with aspect Orthogonal with another opposition: “non-extended” / “extended” Uncertain value: aspectual or modal? ➢ Voice or agentivity? Action / state verbs Transitive / intransitive verbs Most scholars describe Conj. II as “passive” for transitive verbs IMO the existence of an agentive passive remains to be proved ➢ Moods: indicative, imperative (?), optative (suffix) Imperative 2SG/2PL** Identical with Conj. I (2SG or 3SG) Sometimes bare stem Prohibitive: anu + Conj. III Optative (precative) exists in Conj. I and II (perfective) p. 8 Typical description sketch of Elamite (5/8) Sketch of the verbal system (continued) Conj. I ● Forms 1 SG -h ➢ Verbal form proper (Conj. I) Specific verbal endings 2 SG -t Perfective (past), active 3 SG -š Animate subjects only (Malbran-Labat) 1 PL -hu < -h-h ? ➢ Nominal forms of the verb 2 PL -h-t “Past participle”: -k 3 PL -h-š Passive with transitive verbs “Present participle” or “gerund”: -n Passive (Grillot), non-oriented (Malbran- Conj. II Conj. III Labat), active (others) 1 SG -k-k > -k -n-k ➢ e Conjugated nominal forms (quasiverbal) t a 2 SG -k-t -n-t With noun class markers m i n 3 SG -k-r -n-r Conj. II: built upon past participle A Perfective (past) PL -k-p / -p -n-p Conj. III: built upon gerund Inanimate -k -n Imperfective (non-past) p. 9 Typical description sketch of Elamite (6/8) Sketch of the verbal system (continued) ● Forms (continued) ➢ Many details and conjectures make the picture more complex ➢ Extended forms Stem extended with a -ma- morpheme ● Noun-verb agreement ➢ Verb ending In Conj. I: represents the agent (A) or the intransitive subject (S) In Conj. II: represents the patient (O) or the intransitive subject (S) In Conj. III: represents A or S ➢ Resumptive pronouns Verb arguments are often referenced by a chain of pronouns placed just before the verb Something like: ap u in tunih “to-them I it gave” (Grillot, Stolper...) The pronouns are more or less fused phonetically (sandhi) Some scholars consider the last pronoun to be a verb prefix supposed to reference to A or S in Conj. II and III, whereas it is O in Conj. I Would result in a kind of bi-personal conjugation p. 10 Typical description sketch of Elamite (7/8) The verbal system: a non typical recap Conj. I Conj. II Conj. III Conj. IV Built upon Verb stem Past participle Present participle Infinitive Person endings Verbal Class markers Class markers Class markers (animate) (3rd pers. only) Person endings n.a. Ø Ø n.a. (inanimate) Tense-aspect Past perfective Past perfective Non-past imperfective Past perfective Moods rendered • Indicative • Indicative • Indicative • Indicative • Imperative • Precative (with -ni) • Prohibitive (with anu) • Precative (with -ni) Extensibility with -ma Yes Yes Yes ?? Suitable for verbs... • Transitive • Transitive • Transitive • Transitive • Intransitive of • Intransitive of • Intransitive of action? • ?? action action • Intransitive of state? • Intransitive of state Role of the person A / S O A / S A ending Role of the alleged O A / S A / S ? « prefix » Role of resumptive ir Animate O Pseudo-O of ? ? intransitive action Usable in main clause Yes Only if prohibitive, precative or negative Yes (Reiner) p. 11 Typical description sketch of Elamite (8/8) Elements of typological classification ● Ergative, active or nominative? ➢ Diakonoff (1967) classifies it as ergative Though without ergative case Opposition action vs state No direct object category No active vs passive voice opposition ➢ The qualificative “active” seems more appropriate today ➢ Khačikjan (1998) classifies it as “early nominative” Denies existence of action vs state opposition (contra her teacher) Admits relics of ergative and/or active type ● Constituent order ➢ Verb final: neither strictly SOV or OSV because extraposition of arguments and resumptive pronouns blur the picture ➢ But right-branching at the NP level p. 12 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme p. 13 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (1/4) Is it sound to embed person within a class system? ● Reiner (1969:77) assimilates the Elamite class system to the gender systems of “languages which have several genders that control concord, such as many African languages” ● Noun class systems can be seen as an extension of gender ➢ Usual semantic criteria: Sex, animacy, personhood, ability to think, strength... Shape, vegetal, eatable... ➢ Agreement ➢ One noun belongs (usually) to one class*** ● In Elamite, each animate noun belongs potentially to 4 classes p. 14 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (2/4) History of introducing person as a nominal category ● Scheil (1901) ➢ Interprets -k and -me as genitive case suffixes in šak šutruk-nahunte-ik “son of Šutruk-Nahunte” siyan pinikir-me “temple of Pinigir” ➢ What about the -k of sunki-k in sunki-k Anzan Šušun-ka ? ● Labat (1951) ➢ «Certains auteurs [e.g. Hüsing (1905)] ont supposé que -k exprimait l’indéterminé et -r le déterminé. Il est plus probable d’admettre que -k identifie la sphère du sujet parlant, alors que -r est l’indice de ce qui est extérieur à cette sphère : sunki-k (moi) le roi, sunki-r (toi, lui) le roi.» ● Reiner (1969) ➢ Introduces the terms locutive, allocutive, delocutive ➢ Does not make it clear what is the criterion for using person in nouns Sphere of the speaker?? Person of the subject (or topic)? “My beloved wife”: inside or outside the personal sphere of the speaker? p. 15 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (3/4) Suffixaufnahme (Plank 1995) ● Windfuhr (2006) ➢ “Elamite is a head initial language and is characterized by Suffixaufnahme” ● Suffixaufnahme: what it means (in a nutshell) ➢ “In the palace of the king”: Without Suffixaufnahme: palace-LOC king-GEN With Suffixaufnahme: palace-LOC king-GEN-LOC (and variants) ➢ A morpheme from the head is repeated on the dependant It can be any noun category marker (case, gender or class, determinacy...) ● The