Native-speaker Intuitions about Genitive Constructions in Sumerian

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines a remarkable variation in the new manuscript of En-metena 1 (RIME 1.9.5.1) kept in the Sulaymaniyah Museum in Iraq: a left-dislocated genitive construction is replaced by a simple genitive construction. Also, the manuscript shortens the text in a number of places. The paper reviews other known examples of text abridgements in royal inscriptions of the 3rd millennium BC and suggests that the composers of these inscriptions used similar techniques to manipulate the texts according to their function and use as the scribes who wrote the Assyrian royal inscriptions of the 1st millennium. The new manuscript provides a rare opportunity to observe a scribe who adapts an already existing text using his linguistic competence.