VERBS: Parāsum, Person markers, Weak Forms

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thread Orientation: On this thread we examine the Akkadian Verb and all it's complexities. This is where it gets ...interesting 0_0

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************UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Akkadian Verb

General Statement/




The Verbal system of any Semitic language, Akkadian included, will present some significant challenges for the learner - perhaps more than significant. So this is an explicit heads up, if one wants to make it anywhere with this language, one really must pay attention to everything to do with the verbs and how they change and what effects them and so on. It really does get quite complicated and this is exactly why this aspect of the language demands extra study. Below, the verbal system will warrant considerable introduction.




*Important - Language change: Lost consonants in Akkadian/


Even though we may prefer not to get into this, it would be a problem in the long run if we didn't: Akkadian is the oldest written Semitic language.. and yet, philologists have detected that older forms of Semitic language of course existed before Akkadian.
The early form, termed "proto-semitic" is evident in the way that Akkadian word forms systematically break normal conventions in certain circumstances - this is usually the result of a lost consonant. All language exists in a state of continual change, and as such certain language sounds fall into disuse as time move on and words are adjusted accordingly. Let's take an English example: The word light.


This word is of Old Germanic origin, and would have been pronounced "lishhht" (the gh representing the palatal fricative we hear in modern German "ich"). Do to sound change, modern English has lost this sound, the palatal shhh, as a result the gh are now "silent letters" and the word is pronounced "li-t".


Akkadian is full of similar sound changes, consonants which would have been sounded in the proto-semitic language but have dropped off in Akkadian. These consonants are termed aleph 1-5, being guttural sounds more or less like those heard in modern Arabic - plus w and y, termed aleph 6 and 7, which also drop off in most Akkadian words (though w has remained in certain positions).


Wherever one of these dropped consonants would have been in a word, there is extensive vowel modification to Akkadian words - something we will look at lower in the thread. First a discussion of the basic and normal forms of Akkadian verbs will ensue below, following Huehnergard I will then summarise the information regarding irregular forms, that is, those which break from the normal pattern because of dropped consonants.




Roots and Semitic Languages/




Like other Semitic languages, Akkadian verbs, nouns and adjectives are formed from three roots - that is, three consonants. These consonants give the verb it's basic meaning, and so verbs with related meanings often share common roots.
By interchanging the root (the core three consonants) with different vowel combinations, and different suffixes and prefixes, one can manipulate the Akkadian verb. Here is an example the use of the root P-R-S:

Infinitive form:

parāsum
"to separate/divide" (a ā vowel pattern + -um suffix)

Preterite form:

iprus
- "he/she separated/divided" (i- prefix with a variable "theme" vowel - for this verb it is u).

Once the learner learns some of the basic patterns then, the infinitive pattern, the G preterite pattern and so on, it becomes fairly straight foward to shift the root of a verb from form to form and from meaning to meaning. In the next post I will sum Huehnergard's treatment of the basic forms then.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Basic Verbal Forms : parāsum, purus, iprus

Standard Terminology - P R S:





There are two ways of discussing verb forms according to Assyriological convention - by convention, the Akk. word parāsum "to separate/divide" is used. One convention is to discuss a verb in terms of it's roots and to number those:

p₁ a r₂ ā s₃ u m

So we could discuss things in terms of numbered roots, and what root 1,2, and 3 of a given verb are doing in this or that verb pattern. However, I prefer the other convention as it is more traditional: Assyriologists have chosen parāsum (root PRS) as their basic verb exemplar and use form as a metaphor of sorts for how all strong verbs behave (weak verbs which are effected by dropped consonants etc. behave differently). Therefore the infinitive can termed the parāsum[/i] form; the imperative can be termed the purus form; and the G Preterite can be termed the iprus form.


As discussed above, we will look over the basic patterns that structure the Akkadian verbal system and dictate how the root should be read. In case any reading here may be less familiar with the linguistic terms a brief description of the basic verbal functions are given below.


The Infinitive: The infinitive is a verbal form lacking any specific person, gender or tense - in English, it is simply expressed in terms of "to something". He knows how "to jump" , or the alphabet is easy "to learn" . It is the verb in its pure form so to speak, the action independent particularly of any tense.. it isn't the action in the past or in the future, it's just the action.

In Akkadian, as mentioned above, the infinitive takes a fairly regular form termed the parāsum[/i] form. Any verb taking on an infinitive form will take a short a, a long ā, plus the suffix -um

p a r ā s - u m

The Imperative: The imperative verb form conveys a command or directive. It has no particular form in English other then the convention of placing an exclamation mark on certain cases. We might write for example: Go! Jump! Sing loudly!

In Akkadian this use of the verb is given it's own form, sometimes terms the purus [/b][/i] form. Here the two short u vowels appear between the roots and there is no -um prefix:

p u r u s

The G Preterite Form: First it should be explained that in Akkadian there are different "stems" of with the G stem or "grundstem" is what we are dealing with at present. At the time of this writing I really don't know what putting verbal roots into other stem patterns does for a verb, but of course I am a student and the textbook instructs us to think only about G stem for now.

The preterite form usually denotes an action that has occurred in the simple past, we would say in English "he jumped" or "we ran" . In Akkadian, the form for the G preterite is the iprus form. Unlike infinitive or imperative forms, the iprus form is marked for person and gender - you can say "he separated" or "she separated" or we did or they did and so on. In order to do so, you would change the i- suffix (he/she) to another suffix (potential ta, a, ni and so on; to be explained in a following post). Therefore, the for form of iprus is acutually suffix (varying depending on gender etc), root1, root2, them vowel (u in this case) root 3:

i p r u s

*** Theme vowels: The learner is faced with a problem here - the so called theme vowel of the i]iprus[/i] form, is actually no always u. It is in this example used. Unfortunately is could be any one of the short vowel and so one must memorize two things for each verb learned.. a) the verb in it's infinitive form and b) the vowel that goes in the theme vowel position - it is random and there is no way of knowing short of memorization.