CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONJUNCTIONS AND SUBJUNCTIONS Sumerian as an agglutinative language has few conjunctions or sub­ junctions, and some of them are actually loans from Akkadian. In fact, Sumerian has no original word for "and". As for subjunctions, their number is restricted, too, because what is expressed by a con­ junction in a non-agglutinative language such as Semitic or Indo­ European is mosdy represented by a nominalized verbal form plus a dimensional particle in Sumerian, i.e., Kis ... im-ug5-ga-ta "after Kis ... had been killed" (Curse of Akkade 2) where the nominalized verbal form [im-ug-a] is put in the ablative, with [ta], in order to denote temporal distance. In the following, conjunctions and, specially, subjunctions are treated without assigning them to strict grammatical categories, because they are essentially atypical for Sumerian. 14.1. CONJUNCTIONS 14.1.1. [u] Sumerian borrowed Semitic [wa] "and" in its Akkadian form u [u]. Akkadian [u] has not so far been the subject of a detailed study, nor has Sumerian [u]. [u] occurs much less in Akkadian than it does in its cognate Semitic languages, pardy because it was replaced-for linking sentences-by [rna]. Therefore, Sumerian u can hardly be expected to occur more frequendy. Note: wa (or u) is still much more frequent in the Ebla (24th cent. B.C.) variant of Old Akkadian. The allegedly oldest occurrences of u in pre-Sargonic Sumerian (cf. Thomsen 1984, 16 and 83) are actually found in Akkadian contexts (Ebla and Abu ~alab1b): lAS no. 326//ARET 2 no. 6). It should be stressed, however, that the Ebla scribe used u instead of the wa (PI) otherwise preferred for "and" in literary Ebla-Akkadian texts. The 162 CHAPTER FOURTEEN scribe may, therefore, have used U as a Sumerogram which would, at least indirecdy, attest to u as an Akkadian loan in pre-Sargonic Sumerian. The question needs more attention. u "and, and also" definitively gained currency in Sumerian by the time of Ur III, becoming as Sumerian as, more recendy, Arabic wa "and" became Turkish in the form of ve. u frequendy occurs connecting two personal names (e.g., NG no. 7:17-18, and see Sollberger 1966, 182 s.v. u 1:2-4), but it is not used in the enumeration of the names of judges or witnesses. By Ur III times, PN1 u PN2 practically replaced former PN1 PN2-bi(-da) (see 4.2.(7) and 5.4.2.6). Moreover, u may connect PN and a pronoun, two nouns, or two verbal forms (see Sollberger 1966 ibid. 1.27). u eger-ab-ba-ne-ne i-ba-e-ne "and they will also divide the estate of their father" NG no. 7:20. The relation of sentence-connecting u to the more traditional asyn­ detic construction is in need of further elucidation, especially with regard to diachrony. 14.1.2. [ma] By the OB period, apart from u Akkadian connective -ma has also been borrowed. dub-gu 10 i-ru i-[sar] i-til-ma mu-gub-ba-gu10 ma-an-gub-bu-us "I set up my tablet, [wrote] (it), finished (it), and then they put before me (my standing lines =) the model lines (to be copied by me)" Schooldays 5-6. Cf. A. Falkenstein, WO 1/3 (1948) 176. 14.2. SUB]UNCTIONS 14.2.1. [uda] [uda] is spelled u-da or u4-da in Pre-Sargonic Lagas inscriptions. If the etymology of the subjunction were actually the locative of the word u4(-d) "day", i.e. u4-da "at the day; today", the word would have become a subjunction secondarily. It would be difficult to explain, however, why in that case a variant u-da should have occurred which is graphically more complex. .