IS SUMERIAN A NOSTRATIC LANGUAGE?

Before moving on to Indo-European, a little side-step into what's
probably the oldest recorded language in the world: Sumerian.

It's been a matter of some debate whether Sumerian belongs in the
Nostratic superfamily, or in the Sino-Caucasian (Dene-Caucasian) one,
or whether it's simply a language isolate.

Let's see what Sumerian grammar has to offer from the perspective of
Nostratic.

SUMERIAN PERSONAL PRONOUN

The subject case is:

1. g~á-e (Emesal: me.e)
2. za-e (Emesal: ze)
3a. e-ne
3apl. e-ne-ne

No forms are attested of the 1pl. and 2pl. independent pronoun.

The possessive forms are:

1. -g~u10
2. -zu
3a. -ani
3n. -bi
1p. -me
2p. -zu-(e)ne(ne)
3pa. -ane-ne

The Sumerian phoneme /g~/ (written <g> or <m>) is usually taken to
have been a labialized velar or velar nasal (/gW/ or /ngW/). It's
always written <m> in the Emesal dialect, which in a late-Sumerian/
Akkadian context can be indicative of /m/ but also of /w/. Based on a
number of lexical speculations (e.g. Sum. dag~al "wide" ~ Semitic
t.awal "wide" ~ Basque zabal (< *dawal) "wide"; perhaps Sum.
dig~g~ir/dimmeer "god" ~ PIE *diw-wir- "heavenly force"), I believe
/g~/ corresponds mainly with etymological *w.

The Sumerian phoneme <z> was pronounced /c/ (= /ts/).

This allows us to reconstruct:

1sg. *wa *wu
2sg. *ca *cu
3sg. anim. *en *ani
3. inanim. -- *bi
1pl. ? *me
2pl. ? *cu-en
3pl. anim. *en-en *ani-en

If *w < *m (plausible, given 1pl. -me) and *c < *t (harder to tell),
this looks not unlike a Nostratic-derived personal pronoun system.


SUMERIAN NOUN

Sumerian is an ergative language, except that the personal pronouns
have a subject case, which is, nevertheless, marked by the ergative
ending -e.

The nominal declension is:

abs. -0
erg. -e
gen. -a(k)
dat. -ra
loc. -a
comit. -da
term. -s^è
ablat. -ta
equat. -gin7

The plural suffix (absolutive and ergative) is -ene. It can only be
added to animate nouns. Inanimates have no plural.
A collective is available (for animates and inanimates) through full
reduplication.

The structure of a simple nominal phrase is:

N-Adj-Poss-Pl.-Case

e.g. s^es^ gal-g~10-ene-ra
brother big my pl. dat. "for my elder brothers"

The (double) genitive construction is:

[N1-Adj]-N2-Adj-N3-Adj-Poss-Pl3-Gen-Pl2-[Gen-Pl1]-Case

e.g.

s^es^ lugal-g~u-ak-ene-ra (lugal-g~á-ke4-ne-ra)
brother king my G. pl. dat. "for the brothers of my king"

é lugal kalam-ak-ene-ak-a (kalam-ma-ke4-ne-ka)
house king land G pl. G. loc. "in the house of the kings of the
land"

The ergative in -e (mostly used with animate nouns) has a counterpart
-e that is used in certain constructions with inanimate nouns only,
and which is referred to as the "locative-terminative" case. Animates
take the dative case in the same constructions. This seems to imply
that the origin of the ergative is a construction with terminative or
dative -e ("I see you" -> "you are-seen for/towards me").

Nostratic connections can easily be identified for at least locative
-a and ablative/instrumental -ta.


SUMERIAN VERB

The Sumerian conjugation can be divided into three categories:
intransitive, transitive hamt.u (perfective) and transitive marû
(imperfective). The basic form of the verb is either the same for
hamt.u and marû, or it is the hamt.u form, from which the marû is
derived by (partial) reduplication, suffixing or suppletion. There is
also a category of plural verbs, which have a reduplicated or
suppletive root when the absolutive (subject or object) is plural (in
a few cases the plural root is the same as the marû root).

The personal endings are:

intransitive transitive marû transitive hamt.u
1. -en -OBJ-....-en -?-....-0
2. -en -OBJ-....-en -e-....-0
3. -0 -OBJ-....-e -n-....-0
-b-....-0
1. -enden -OBJ-....-enden -?-....-enden
2. -enzen -OBJ-....-enzen -e-....-enzen
3. -es^ -OBJ-....-ene -n-....-es^

Analysis of these forms is difficult. It is unclear whether the
first person pronominal infix is zero or -e-. The other infixes
are -e- for 2nd. person, -n- for animate 3rd. person and -b- for
inanimate 3rd. person. They fill the OBJ prefix slot in the
transitive marû conjugation, the subject prefix slot in the transitive
hamt.u conjugation.

The pronominal suffixes are -en for 1st. and 2nd. person, -enden
for 1pl. and -enzen for 2pl. The third person has -0 or -e, plural
-es^ or -en-e.

A possible analysis would be:

*-em ?
*-en *-e- (origin??)
*-0 / *-0-e *-n- (animate pronoun)
*-b- (inanimate pronoun)

*-em-d-en or *-en-d-em (what is *d ??)
*-en-c-en or *-en-c-en (i.e. 2p(a)-2p(b)-Pl or Pl.-2p(a)-2p(b))
*-es^ / *-en-e

As can be seen, much remains unclear. While there is certainly some
evidence for Sumerian as a Nostratic language (nominal, pronominal and
verbal plural -en; first person pl. poss. me, and perhaps also 1sg.
g~a and 2nd. p. za, pl. poss. zu-en-; ablative/instrumental -ta),
the evidence cannot be said to be overwhelming.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...