Zólyomi Gábor (ELTE)

Copular clauses in Sumerian

 

2016. április 5., 11.00

Sumerian was an agglutinative language spoken in the southern part of ancient Mesopotamia, recorded by a mixed logographic-phonographic writing system. The subject of this talk is a description of some of the functions a copular clause may perform in Sumerian. It starts with a description of its basic characteristics, followed by a typology in terms of its semantic type and information structure. In the second part of the talk two types of biclausal constructions involving a copular clause will be discussed. In the first type the copular clause functions as paratactic relative clause; while in the second one the copula may be interpreted as a focus marker.