t-Forms of the Akkadian Stative

Abstract

This article re-evaluates the status of the Stative paradigm in Akkadian, the language’s only exclusively suffixing paradigm, and argues in favour of a verbal classification on the basis of the possible medialisation of its attested forms. The Stative denotes the state persisting following a perfective-associated event. Thereby, two kinds of Statives are known: a verbal Stative and a nominal Stative. While the root of verbal Statives is mapped onto a Verbal Adjectival base template, the nominal Stative uses either a noun or an adjective’s stem as its base. To the respective bases both forms add the same distinct set of suffixes. Re-evaluating the morphological make-up of the form as well as its semantic connotation, this article proposes a new paradigmatic split between root-derived (verbal) and stem-derived (nominal) Stative forms and adduces previously disregarded evidence for medialisation of both verbal and nominal Statives as the main argument in favour of a verbal interpretation.