R. Hasselbach. Sargonic Akkadian. A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. XVI + 292 pp.* The book under review is the first attempt to offer a comprehensive syn-chronic and diachronic description of Sargonic Akkadian since I. J. Gelb’s pioneering study of 1961. Lack of an up-to-date linguistic investigation of the earliest written Semitic idiom has been a sore gap of the present-day Akkadian linguistics, the more so in view of the fact that considerable deal of attention was spent to this dialect by the best specialists in the linguistic landscape of early Mesopotamia such as Aage Westenholz, Walter Som-merfeld, and Manfred Krebernik. The newly published book by Hassel-bach will seriously contribute to fill this lacuna.

As far as the introductory chapter of the book (pp. 1–25) is concerned, perhaps the main problem to be considered is the corpus on which the de-scription is based. As is well known, the corpus of authentic documents in Sargonic Akkadian is rather small and not particularly informative from the linguistic point of view. By way of a makeshift, it is traditionally supple-mented by two extra bodies of evidence: Semitic proper names from au-thentic Sargonic documents on the one hand and Old Babylonian copies of original Sargonic royal inscriptions on the other. The legitimacy of both ad-ditions may look questionable from a strictly linguistic point of view and it is indeed this rigid stance that the author endorses with respect to these addi-tions: neither proper names, nor OB copies are discussed in her grammar. This decision—let us repeat, by no means illegitimate a priori—is certainly among the most important challenges of Hasselbach’s grammar and, ac-cordingly, deserves to be dealt with at some length in the present context. OB copies

As stated on p. 11, “the perception that the copies from Nippur are faith-ful reflections of the original royal inscriptions has often led to their rather uncritical inclusion into the Sargonic Akkadian corpus”. As men-tioned above, the author has decided not to take into consideration the evidence of OB copies (with a few exceptions). This is perhaps too radical

* Abbreviations in this review follow http://cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/index.php/Ab-breviations_for_Assyriology.

556 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies to be fruitful. Ideally, every phonological and morphological phenome-non attested in the OB copies would have to be evaluated regarding the possibility of its late origin. If it is likely, the forms in question can be le-gitimately eliminated from the discussion of the Sargonic grammar (al-though, in our view, a systematic investigation of such deviating forms is also quite important from both linguistic and philological points of view). However, when a late origin is unlikely, there is hardly any reason to leave this precious material out of consideration, especially since the OB copies tend to be longer and considerably more informative than the available authentic inscriptions. That OB copies do yield very remarkable linguistic facts unattested elsewhere in the Sargonic corpus, yet not at-tributable to the OB influence, can be easily demonstrated.

On p. 182 of her grammar R. Hasselbach observes: “The unbound form of nouns and adjectives regularly uses mimation. Exceptions are only found in personal names in which mimation can be absent.”1 Now, in Rim C 5 BS i we read: Rí-mu-<uś> LUGAL KIŠ šu dEn-líl ma-¶i-ra la i-dì-śum ‘Rīmuš, king of the world, to whom the god Enlil gave no rival’. The same formula reap-pears in OB copies of a few other Sargonic inscriptions (v. references in Kienast–Sommerfeld 1994:238) but does not occur in any original inscrip-tion—and, consequently, is not studied in the book under review. Can the lack of mimation in mā¶ira be due to the OB influence? Almost certainly not: it is noteworthy that OB omina quoted in CAD M1 99 consistently supply the mimation in the apodoses involving this phrase (like amūt Šarrukīn ša ma-¶i-ra-am laššū in RA 27 149:4). We are thus faced with a purely Sargonic gram-matical feature whose importance, however, goes far beyond the Sargonic—and, indeed, Akkadian—grammar. As widely recognized since Kuryłowicz’s classic article of 1950, in its origin mimation is a marker of definiteness. Now, the syntactic position in which ma-¶i-ra is found is a prototypically indefinite one, as our German and English translations (“einen Rivalen nicht gegeben hat”, “gave no rival”) plainly suggest. Kuryłowicz’s brilliant intuition is thus confirmed after more than fifty years (“il paraît que les assyriologues peu-vent étudier l’ancienne valeur déterminative de -m et sa disparition sans s’inquiéter de l’emploi apparemment contraire de la nounation arabe”). The incompatibility between mimation and indefiniteness is now no more a theo-

1 With reference to Gelb 1961:200 (p. 145 in the edition available to us) where

a similar statement is found. That ma-¶i-ra was overlooked by Gelb (who did sys-tematically use the OB copies) is surprising.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 557 retical construct but can be exemplified by a real textual example from the earliest textual documents written in a Semitic language.2

On p. 145, the author discusses the assimilation of n to the following consonant and concludes that “/n/ was regularly assimilated to a following consonant in Sargonic Akkadian”. She does refer to Gelb 1961:163 (p. 120 in the edition available to us) where he states that pre-consonantal n can also be preserved but her evaluation of this suggestion is mostly applied to personal names. But what about in śa-an-tim śa-lí-iś-tim ‘in the third year’ in Rim C 6 74–75? This form (already adduced by Gelb without comment) does not occur in any original inscription. Are there any grounds to sup-pose that the preservation of n in this form is due to a late influence? Most probably, not. Rather, we should regard it as a true Sargonic occasionalism still awaiting its synchronic and diachronic interpretation.3

Less impressive but still very important forms (sometimes helping to fill paradigmatic lacunae) include:

– additional evidence for the use of Á for /ha/: <á>-ra-ab-śu-nu ‘their fugitives’ in Rim C 1 25 (Westenholz 1996:120), á-lí-ik ‘one who goes’ in Rim C 1 BS g;

– 3 du. possessive suffix -śunē (BÀD-śu-ni in Rim C 1 28, URUki-śu-ni ibid. 31);4

– non-contracted form of the infinitive IIw (in <tù>-a-rí-śu ‘on his re-turn’ in Rim C 1 45);

– forms of izuzzum spelled with VD rather than VZ, namely i-za-AD in Škš C 2:17 and li-zi-ID in Nar C 5:109 (v. Huehnergard 2002:178 for various possibilities of interpretation).

The author’s treatment of Sargonic prepositions is also significant in this respect. On p. 171 she lists a number of prepositions which are found only in OB copies with the following comment: “Whether these constitute original Old Akkadian prepositions or later, that is, Old Baby-lonian additions and changes, is not determinable”. However, a closer look on the list suggests that a later origin is quite unlikely at least for

2 H. Rosen is right to observe that the main incompatibility positions of mima-tion/nunation in the attested Semitic languages would also allow for the interpre-tation of mimation/nunation as markers of indefiniteness (apud Dolgopolsky 1991:329–330). Dolgopolsky agrees with this claim but provides reasonable ar-guments against such a possibility. The Sargonic example strengthens his case.

3 Strikingly similar parallels are found in the Mari livers: a-mu-ut šul-gi śá a-ga-a-šu in-dì-ì ‘omen of Shulgi who threw off? his diadem’ and especially in šu-un-ti-šu GÌR.NÍTA a-mur ‘in his dream I saw a shakkanakku’ (RA 35, Nos. 5 and 26 re-spectively). For the latter example v. Sanmartín 1995:452.

4 This feature is in fact attested in original documents, too, v. below in connec-tion with p. 153.

558 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies some of the lexemes in question. Thus, in ba-rí-ti ‘between’ is clearly reminiscent of Old Assyrian bari ‘between, amidst’ (CAD B 246, AHw. 107) but too different from the OB form birīt to suppose any influence from the latter. The same applies to al-li-ti ‘next to’.5

Last but not least, examples adduced in fn. 62 of the volume under re-view are probably not sufficient for a reliable conclusion about the “incor-rect” orthography of OB copies. At least as far as the sibilants are con-cerned, none of the three examples mentioned by the author seems par-ticularly impressive. The use of IŠ in iś-ni-a-ma < *¬ny in Sar C 3:24 of course may be labeled “incorrect” but note that the use of the “correct” IŠ11 in the original royal inscriptions is restricted to one single verb ša!ārum (iš11-ar and similar forms)6 whereas IŠ for an etymological *i¬ does occur in original Sargonic documents other than royal inscriptions (li-iś-bu in Ga 7:11). As far as SA-lí-IŠ-tim ‘third’ in Rim C 6:76 (also paralleled by an iden-tical form in an original Sargonic document, Eš 7:9′) is concerned, already Krebernik (1985:58) suspected that the Sargonic form is not to be equated with the Central Semitic *¬alā¬- but rather with the presumably more ar-chaic form *ŝalā¬- known from MSA, ESA and, probably, Geez.7 Finally, the derivation of SA-bi-ir in Nar C 3:4 from šebērum (*¬br) is not unanimously accepted (cf. śa-pí-ir ‘commander’ in RIME 2, p. 130 as well as Krebernik 1991:141).8

5 Commented upon as follows: “The preposition "allīti is otherwise only at-

tested in texts from Nuzi in the form ellēt, where the exact meaning is unclear”. It seems that the pertinent form (al-le-ti in Nar C 1:139) can hardly be separated from the combination ina/ana lēt ‘in the vicinity of, at the edge of ’ well attested in OB and OA (CAD L 151). Especially noteworthy are assimilated forms in OA such as a-li-tí-a ula i¢a¶¶i (CCT 3 7a:26). Alternatively, al can be analysed as al ‘on’ (= eli), in which case the geminated spelling (otherwise somewhat unusual) does not require any special explanation.

6 Whose etymology is, strictly speaking, rather uncertain. As far as one can judge from the examples analyzed in the book under review, the only other at-testation of IŠ11 in the syllabic texts is iš11-£ú-lu in MAD 5 65:34 (etymologically correct).

7 Krebernik’s attractive identification explains SA but not IŠ (which, in princi-ple, should be IŠ11 in any case). If one insists that the distinction between IŠ and IŠ11 is operative (cf. the preceding fn.), it may be supposed that that the Akkadian form underwent an assimilation similar to the Central Semitic one but in the re-verse direction: *ŝalā¬- > *ŝalāŝ-.

8 The use of BI rather than BÍ in this form may be due to the influence of r, cf. Hasselbach 2005:42.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 559 Personal names

Both reasons adduced by the author on pp. 20–21 (“they often reflect an earlier stage of the language and are difficult to analyze because of the absence of significant grammatical context”) are cogent and can hardly be questioned. To Macdonald’s (2004:493–494) judicious observations on this point adduced in fn. 105 one can add the reasons expounded in the two major achievements of Semitic grammar of recent years, Tropper 2000:7 and Stein 2003:56. The detailed exposition in Huehnergard 1987:714–715 is perhaps the most lucid one and its last paragraph de-serves to be quoted in full: “All this is not to suggest that we should re-frain from subjecting personal and geographical names to linguistic analysis. Rather, it is to emphasize that what profits from such analysis is our understanding of the name itself, not our understanding of a par-ticular dialect”. Applying this observation to the grammar under review, one can say that the author’s approach is both understandable and le-gitimate, but its value (at least from the Assyriological point of view) would be greater if the onomastic material were taken into considera-tion—needless to say, with all due caution.9

As far as the original Sargonic documents are concerned, the author is to be congratulated for her comprehensive treatment of these texts. This is especially the case of administrative and legal documents (for a useful list v. pp. 255–262 of Chapter 7). A few lacunae can be detected, however. Thus, the form ´a-bi-ù (in ´a-bi-ù kí-nu-tum ‘the regular troops’, MAD 5 46: 8–10) is missing from both the grammar and the lexical index in spite of the fact that both bi and ù are orthographically remarkable (bi /be/ would complement the sections on the “lowering of /i/ before /’/ and /r/”, pp. 107–120; ù /!u/, that on the “representation of /!/”, pp. 75–77) where-as the non-contracted shape of this word is peculiar in view of compara-ble forms in OB Mari (CAD Ô 54, discussion section). The form ig-ba-ri (in ig-ba-ri ìr-ku-sú ‘they attached the jewels?’, OSP 2 24:5–6) would provide

9 Among remarkable linguistic features attested in personal names but not

elsewhere one could mention the abbreviated form of the 3 sg. masc. pronominal enclitic in such forms as Ma-an-gi5-im-lu-uś (MAD 1 66 I′:4); Rí-ig-mu-uś-al-śu (JCS 28 229 I:12, Nar A 4:1), v. Sommerfeld 2003a:411; 2003b:576 (cf. p. 152: “the abbreviated form -s known from other dialects is not attested for the posessive suffix”). The dative enclitic *-śunēś which can probably be detected in the per-sonal name Śu-ni-iś-tá-kál mentioned by Gelb in MAD 3, p. 295 (Diyala) would be of some relevance for the author’s analysis of the genealogical position of Sargon-ic (v. extensively below in this review).

560 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies one more example of the RI spelling of the oblique plural (on p. 50 only one such case is mentioned). The spelling u-bil4(GIŠ.NE) in MAD 5 102:11 is an interesting addition to ub-AN and u-bìl already mentioned in the lexical index (p. 289). Additional examples for otherwise relatively well attested spellings include u-ru (MAD 1 127 Rs. 1), i-¶u-uz6 (MAD 1 127 Rs. 4), im-¶ur-ru (MAD 5 3:3; cf. im-¶ur-ra in MAD 4 11:27 which does appear in the index), i-ba-šè-ù (OSP 2 25:12). The text MC 4 73, documenting the bu£ānam šūtu£um rite, is included into the corpus but the in many re-spects peculiar form [u-š]a-ti-£ú-ni (l. 18) is altogether omitted from the discussion.

Transliterations of forms in the grammar are usually correct. With good reasons the author did not blindly trust the transliterations avail-able from standard editions many of which are well known to be inexact precisely in those points which are the most vital for the linguistic (espe-cially, phonological) discussion. In a few cases it may be observed that transliterations do not exactly correspond to the state of text preservation. Thus, a transliteration <lu-śa>-bí-[l]a-kum for Ki 1:12 would better corre-spond to the copy than lu-sa-bí-l[a]-kum found on p. 43. Additional examples include u-śu-<´i>-ma (Ga 6:8) and <śu-´í>-a-am (Ki 1:15) vs. u-su-zé-ma and su-zi-a-am on p. 57, ki-<na>-tu-ì-<a> (Um 2:18) vs. ki-na-tu-ì-a on p. 58, mi-[i]¶-rí (OAIC 25:9) vs. mi-i¶-rí on pp. 48, 49, 104, [n]a-!à-aś-śu (Ad 3:9) vs. na-!à-ás-su on p. 81, [ar]-¶i-iś (Gir 8:7) and <ar>-¶i-iś (Um 3:26) vs. ar-¶i-ís on p. 181 etc. Certain inaccuracies in the translations of the ex-amples can also be detected. Thus, £er-bí-śu (Ga 3:13) is translated as ‘in it’ on p. 42 but in fact the context reads in £er-bí-śu a-na ŠE.BA li-dì-in so that the translation ‘from it’ (“davon” in the edition) is obvious. The form mi-[i]¶-rí (in m[i]-i¶-rí URU Gi-tim, OAIC 25:9) is quoted several times with different translations: ‘copy’ on pp. 47–48 but ‘front’ on p. 104 (the latter corresponds to Gelb’s rendering in OAIC).

Discussion of Sargonic Akkadian orphography (pp. 27–97), phonol-

ogy (pp. 99–146) and morphology (pp. 147–229) constitute the bulk of the volume. What follows are critical remarks concerning various issues discussed in these chapters.

pp. 32–35 (Overview of the Sargonic Akkadian syllabary). A few signs are missing from the list of signs and their syllabic values. Thus, a few rare values are omitted: ÁB for /ap/ in áp-sà-sà-tim (OSP 2 28 2:4) and GU4

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 561 for /ku/ in ku15-sà-rí-ku (ibid. 24:1).

10 More surprising is that the section dealing with liquids does not mention UL, commonly used for /ul/ (e. g., tá-áš-£ú-ul in MAD 5 48:4′, lu-uš-£ú-ul-kum in OAIC 10:10, iś-lu-ul in BIN 8 144:39).11 The sign Ù is not mentioned among signs rendering glides in spite of the fact that it is used for /yu/ in ù-bi-lam (MAD 4 11:15) and ù-bi-lu-nim (MAD 4 11:18), as duly acknowledged on p. 88. Finally, the list contains an unfortunate misprint: the section dealing with glides lists E (instead of the correct È, as on p. 87) among the signs employed for yV.

p. 41. The statement “This verb behaves like a III-y root throughout Akkadian, as indicated by its theme vowels i ~ i. It will, therefore, be as-sumed that qabûm was III-y and not III-!” requires modification. A one-to-one correlation between the root-vowel and the original weak conso-nant is often taken as axiomatic in Akkadian linguistics but the real pic-ture is more complicated as demonstrated in Huehnergard 1999:93 (to the examples like inašši — išši < *nŝ! ‘to bring’ adduced by Huehnergard one can add those like i¢ebbu — i¢bu < *¢b" ‘to submerge’).

ibid. “The vowel class i ~ i in Akkadian is the result of the merger of the two original vowel classes a ~ i and i ~ a. Verbs i ~ i consequently originally were either a ~ i or i ~ a” (cf. also p. 215). This statement seems puzzling, at least without a pertinent reference.12 What may be in-tended is J. Kuryłowicz’s theory according to which a Proto-Semitic a-present ~ i-preterite class of transitive verbs did not survive among strong verbs in Akkadian but was redistributed between the i ~ i class (originally intransitive only) and the a ~ u class (Kuryłowicz 1972:54–59). Sommerfeld’s observations on the Sargonic conjugation of £abû (1999:20) certainly yield support to this theory.13

ibid. 42. For an additional example of the use of BI before /r/ v. bé-ru ‘selected (of workers)’ (MAD 5 11:8).14 Exceptional examples of an appar-

10 In both cases the choice was likely conditioned by the fact that the words in

question denote “bull-like” and “cow-like” animals (apsasûm and kusarikkum). 11 The two latter occurrences are mentioned in the lexical Index. 12 It is rather hard to imagine a verb with an i-present and an a-preterite at any

stage of the development of Semitic. As demonstrated by T. Frolova (2001), virtu-ally none of the seven hypothetic examples of this type adduced in Kuryłowicz 1972:55 is correct from the point of view of modern Akkadian lexicography.

13 For a different, phonologically conditioned explanation of the fact that some Akkadian a/u-verbs correspond to i-verbs in Arabic v. Frolova 2003:86.

14 The etymological *µ may also have played its role. All in all, the similarity of this form to i-BI-ru ‘he chose’ (HSS 10 184:9, cf. the lexical index, p. 267) derived from the same root is conspicuous.

562 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies ently non-motivated use of BI for /bi/ can be supplemented by ´a-bi-it ‘he took’ in the newly published document BI 175v:11.15

p. 44–45. A nice pair of contrasting forms of one lexeme illustrating the distribution of the sings GI and KI comes from OSP 2 27:2′ and 7′: [a-na x] ù-ra-kí ‘for x rods?’ vs. [a-na 1 ù]-ra-ki-im GAL ‘for one large rod?’. The form sà-kí-ru /sākirū/ ‘canal workers’ (MAD 5 9 II 9) is missing from this section (also from the book in general) in spite of the fact that the use of GI is not expected (can it be explained by the “lowering of i before r” discussed on pp. 107–120?). Finally, it would perhaps be appropriate to mention in the section dealing with GI and KI that one more sign from the velar group, namely GI4, is attested in the Sargonic corpus (wa-ar-ki8-um in MAD 1 229:13).

pp. 47–48. As pointed out by the author, “the syllabary of the original royal inscriptions does not use the sign ME for syllabic spellings”. This prac-tically means that examples from royal inscriptions are not relevant for the discussion of the sign pair MI—ME. Now, the same can be applied to incan-tations, since “the use of ME in the literary texts MAD 5 8 and OSP 1 7 seems to be conditioned by the syllabary used in these texts” (i. e., only ME is used in these texts). Since in the remaining groups of texts the use of MI is restricted to the interrogative pronoun mīnum, the orthographic opposi-tion MI—ME becomes practically irrelevant (contrast “the sign pair MI~ME distinguishes the vowel qualities /e/ and /i/” on p. 47).16

p. 52. ŠI-ib-ŠI-im (in ŠE GUR šu ŠI-ib-ŠI-im, MAD 1 2 Rs. VII 9) is to be added to the two occurrences of ŠI outside the relative pronoun adduced by the author (note that this word is written with signs of the SV-series else-where in the corpus: śi-ib-śu-um in MAD 1 35:30, śi-ib-ŠUM in MAD 4 3:6).

p. 54. The relevance of the three examples of ŠÈ for the original *š and *ŝ (rather than *¬) is very restricted: the first example (šè-bum ‘elder’) comes from Pre-Sargonic Mari where scribal habits different from the Sargonic ones are possible, the second one is based on an emendation (li-<su>-šè-ir) in a difficult context (Um 3:27) whereas the third one involves a word with uncertain etymology (ki-šè-ir-tim).17

15 In Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab delle collezioni della Banca d’Italia. Vol. I. Roma, 2006 (eds. F. Pomponio, G. Visicato, A. Westenholz). Admittedly, the text is dated to the “year when Shu-Durul assumed the kingdom”, i. e. is, strictly speaking, post-Sargonic.

16 For an additional example of its use to express -ē of the plural oblique v. la-a¶-me in OSP 2 19:5.

17 The author’s approach to the etymology of this term is not clear to us. On p. 54 it is said to be derived from either *ksr or *£sr whereas only *£sr is men-

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 563

p. 56. The author adheres to the widespread opinion according to which the Akkadian preposition išti is etymologically related to Geez w3sta (among recent studies v., e. g., Voigt 1999:35, Archi 2002:14; contrast Leslau’s cautious position in LGz. 621). There are, however, many rea-sons to believe that this connection is to be rejected:

– word initial *w is always preserved in Sargonic (Hasselbach 2005: 91) so that the shift *wi > i is most unlikely (Blažek forthcoming);

– as demonstrated by the obviously related forms in Ebla and other Presargoinc corpora (Archi 2002:14), the original vowel in this preposition is a (áš-ti etc.) rather than *i or *u which underlie Gez. w3sta. Incidentally, the shift *wa > a appears even more unlikely than *wi > i;

– Gez. w3sta cannot be separated from the nominal lexeme w3s¢ ‘in-terior, middle, inner part’ (LGz. 620). It is precisely the latter form that is widespread in Neo-Ethiopian (for its use in com-pound prepositions v. LHar. 34 and Voigt 1999:35). Cognate terms in Arabic and ESA (LGz. 621) also unambiguously point to the priority of ¢ as the last radical. Different explanations of the non-emphatic t in the Geez preposition suggest themselves,18 but its secondary nature is evident. Conversely, the Akkadian prepo-sition clearly has a non-emphatic t as abundantly documented by later Assyrian spellings. That loss of emphasis took place already in Proto-Semitic as suggested in Voigt 1999:35 (“Der beiden Sprachen gemeinsame Verlust der Emphase wäre dann das Ergebnis eines vorursemitischen Grammatikalisierungsprozesses”) is extremely unikely;19

– last but not least, the semantic difference between Akk. išti and Gez. w3sta is not to be neglected: while the Akk. preposition basi-cally means ‘together with’ and ‘from’, the Gez. one “in meaning corresponds for the most part to the Hebr. !äl and "al” (Dillmann 1906:396), i. e., is more or less strictly directional and local.

tioned in the index (p. 274). What may be intended is a derivation from the root *£Sr ‘to bind’ whose sibilant is, however, quite problematic. As rightly pointed out on p. 60, that this sibilant was actually *¬ is not unlikely (although Syr. £¢r—so in-stead of the author’s £tr, v. Brock. 661—is probably no direct evidence). Then the spelling with ŠÈ is the expected one. At the same time, the clearly related OA kišeršum (and especially kišaršum) ‘prison’ (CAD K 450) does not favor a Semitic etymology at all.

18 Spontaneous loss of emphasis as a result of the very frequent prepositional use? Assimilation of ¢ to a hypothetic fem. marker (*-¢t > *-tt, as in walatt ‘daugh-ter’ and !aµatti ‘one’) with the subsequent simplification of the geminate (*w3s3¢-t > *w3s3tt > w3st)?

19 It is noteworthy that w3st and w3s¢ apparently coexisted as prepositions in Epigraphic Geez (cf. Littmann 1913:41; the reading is confirmed by RIÉ 189:41).

564 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies

With these considerations in mind, it seems preferable to connect išti with ištēn ‘one’ as tentatively suggested in Pennacchietti 1974:178 and approved in Blažek forthcoming (to the Hebrew adverbs yáµad, yaµdāw ‘together’ mentioned by Pennacchietti one could add Akk. ištēniš with the same meaning). Needless to say, that išti ‘with’, ištēn ‘one’ and Ištar all have parallels with a- in East and West Semitic (áš-ti and aš-tár in Ebla, "aštē and "ašt&rät in Hebrew) is also quite remarkable.

p. 57. As a result of her analysis of the use of ZI and ZÉ the author comes to the conclusion that “ZI represents the syllables /zi/ and /zī/, and ZÉ /ze/”. As pointed out in Kogan 2004a:13–14, this conclusion is some-what premature. Attestations of ZÉ are restricted to the form a-ZÉ-¶a-me whose meaning and etymology remain, in spite of many efforts, rather obscure as well as to a couple of forms of wa´û Š (to u-śu-´i-ma in Ga 6:8 mentioned by the author add li-śu-´i-aś-śu-ni in Gir 29:12 as well as u-śu-´i in the recently published Sargonic document BI–II 5 verso 2)20 for which no reasonable distribution with similar forms written with ZI has been suggested so far.21

p. 59. The use of DU is not adequately described. According to the au-thor, this sign “never occurs in royal inscriptions and is, outside of per-sonal names, hardly used at all”. This conclusion is somewhat perplexing given the fact that several reliable examples of DU for both /du/ and /tù/ are attested in economic documents: iś-du-ud (OAIC 2:4, 8:21), iś-du-da (ibid. 1:12), im-[d]u-ud (ibid. 9:21), tù-śa-an (OSP 2 25:2) and ib-tù-£ám (OSP 2 16 IV 8, in the date formula).22

p. 60. It is not clear how Hbr. £šr ‘to bind’ can be used to support *£ as the first consonant of a word variously translated as ‘restitution’ (here and p. 189) or ‘transaction’ (p. 274 and elsewhere). In any case, the se-mantic connection (if there is any) is too weak to allow one to use this verb in an orthographic discussion.

pp. 60–62. On these pages it is suggested that GU was originally used for /£u/ and KU, for /ku/. It may be true that in original royal inscriptions GU is exclusively used for an original *£u, but one should not forget that only two forms of one and the same verb la£ātum are involved (li-il-GU-tu and li-il-GU-tá). Given the fact that in other textual genres both GU for *ku

20 In Tavolette cuneiformi di varia provenienza delle collezioni della Banca d’Italia.

Vol. II. Roma, 2006 (eds. F. Pomponio, M. Stol, A. Westenholz). 21 Note also bù-ZÉ-num (for bu´īnum) in OAIC 41:6 where e-vocalism is hardly

expected. 22 Only the first two forms are mentioned in the Index (p. 284).

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 565 and KU for *£u are well attested (v. examples adduced by the author on these pages), the distribution suggested above is at best doubtful.

pp. 62, 183, 267. On these pages a contradictory evaluation of bu-ra-ma-ti in MAD 5 8:13 is proposed: it is translated either as ‘colored’ or as ‘colors’. Indeed, this form does not lend itself to an easy explanation. The pattern purras- (a normalization accepted by the author and by earlier editors such as Westenholz–Westenholz 1977:208) does not seem to be at all attested in Akkadian whereas “ ‘the multicolored things of your eyes’, meaning ‘your multicolored eyes’ ” in Westenholz–Westenholz 1977:208 is far from self-evident as far as syntax is concerned. It may be observed that the root brm in Akkadian is not only applied to eyes but also produced a concrete term denoting a part of the eye, namely burum īnim ‘iris’ (CAD B 330). We are aware that bu-ra-ma-ti cannot be directly derived from burmu (no internal a-plurals in Akkadian!) but a semantically related *burāmum, pl. *burāmātum is not difficult to imagine (postulating a hapax legomenon is inevitable in any case). The pattern purās-, possibly diminutive in its origin, looks justified if one compares *burāmum to such well-known Hebrew designations of the pupil as !īšōn or bat-"áyin. If this interpretation is found to be acceptable, a-¶u-uzx bu-ra-ma-ti e-ni-ki would mean not just ‘I have seized your dazzling eyes’ (Westenholz–Westenholz 1977:203), but rather ‘I have seized the iris of your eyes’, i. e. the very power of your vision.23

pp. 62–63. The list of words written with the sign BÙ is to be ex-panded with bù-´i-num (OAIC 41:6). As mentioned on p. 63, “it seems that BÙ is only used for the voiced bilabial /bu/, and BU only for its voice-less counterpart /pu/” in the royal inscriptions. This statement is un-doubtedly correct: neither BU for /bu/, nor BÙ for /pu/ are attested in this corpus. However, this may be due to mere coincidence: the only attesta-tion of BÙ in the original royal inscriptions is bù-ú-la-ti (Škš 2:7, Škš 5:4) whereas no forms where BU could have been used for /bu/ are at all at-tested in this corpus.

ibid. It may be observed that besides IL and ÍL the Sargonic syllabary also uses the sign ÌL (AN) for /il/ as in u-kí-ìl (HSS 10 94:11), [t]u-kí-ìl (OAIC 9:24). This sign also occurs in ub-AN (MAD 5 79:13, MAD 5 100:6′), probably a form of wabālum with a broken spelling (see p. 36, fn. 28 in the book under review). The sign pair IL — ÍL is thus to be up-dated to a triad.

23 That would mean, incidentally, ‘your most precious, cherished things’ (for

these connotations in the above-mentioned Hebrew terms for pupil of the eye v. BDB 36).

566 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies

p. 66. Note that the use of IM4 is not limited to the personal name Im4-tá-lik and forms of ma¶āru: it is also used for /yim/ in the preterite of madādum (im4-dú-ud in HSS 10 41:4, missing from the lexical index on p. 275 where only im-dú-ud in MAD 1 158:3 is mentioned).

p. 67. Besides en-ma, the sign EN is attested twice in a text from Gasur: en-a-ra (HSS 10 206:4), en-a-ru (ibid. 7). These forms most probably be-long to nêrum (cf. CAD N2 181), in which case they should be analyzed as 3 du. and pl. of the preterite respectively. The spelling en-ar in an OB copy from Ur (Nar C 5:39) may thus be supported by the evidence from an original Sargonic text.

p. 69. It seems that the use of SÁ deserves a more detailed analysis. The available examples fall into three groups.

The first group includes derivatives of šalāmum. Here the use of SÁ is likely conditioned by the use of SÁ (SILIM) as a logogram for šalāmum (note especially the spellings of šalāmum-based personal names in MAD 3, p. 272f.). If this assumption is correct, the use of SÁ in such cases is, so to say, not purely syllabic and has limited relevance for the orthographic and phonological discussion.24

The second group is formed by examples of SÁ rendering the causa-tive marker. In three of the four examples listed by the author the first radical is a guttural (the exception is u-SÁ-dì-in for /yušaddin/ in Gir 17:6). Similarly, there is only one example of SA for the causative marker com-bined with a guttural as the first radical (u-SA-rí-ib in Nar A1 1:18). With this evidence in mind, one is inclined to support rather than reject the assumption that at least originally SÁ was a CVC sign with a guttural out-set (Sommerfeld 2003b:413). Chronological and textual distribution of the exceptions is also noteworthy: u-SA-rí-ib is found in the inscription of a local ruler (ensi of Marad) whereas u-SÁ-rí-ib is present in Naram-Sîn’s own inscription (Nar 2 4:5); the letter Gir 17 where u-SÁ-dì-in is attested is likely to be dated to the late Sargonic period due to the occurrence of Lugal-ra as its addressee.25

Finally, SÁ is found in two nominal forms of uncertain etymology: SÁ-ri-im (MAD 1 169 II 10) and SÁ-pi-NI-ì-a (Gir 37:4).26 Needless to say, un-

24 Contrast “especially since the sign is also used for forms of the root *slm” in

fn. 136. 25 Lugal-ra is known to be an official in the royal administration of Šarkališarrī

(Kienast–Volk 1995:88). 26 The latter form is not adduced by the author in this section but is discussed

elsewhere in the book (see p. 285 of the Index).

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 567 less a cogent interpretation of these examples is suggested, their rele-vance for the orthographic discussion is very restricted.

pp. 85, 86, 130. L. Kogan is not to be credited with the “new etymol-ogy” of ru-GA-tim in MAD 5 8:12. The reading ša rū£ātim as ‘of that which is far away’ in Westenholz–Westenholz 1977:208 has been improved by C. Wilcke (1985:206) and W. Lambert (1987:37–38) long before the ap-pearance of Kogan 2001 (both duly mentioned on p. 276 of that arti-cle).27 The author’s reference to the rendering of Hebrew proper names like "azzā with γ in LXX is anticipated by Lambert (cf., however, Kogan 2001:285–6 where it is suggested that the reading of GA in such cases may actually be £á rather than ga).

p. 114. The Arabic cognate for Akkadian ša¶ā¢u adduced in Huehner-gard 2003:105 is šµ¢ (= *ŝµ¢) rather than sµ¢ (= *šµ¢, or *sµ¢ in Hasselbach’s notation).

p. 117. It is not clear why e-pi5-iś ‘I will make’ should have the syllable *iµ (rather than *aµ) in the protoform. One wonders, incidentally, whether a bisyllabic reconstruction *!e(µ)pis is at all satisfactory for a form with future meaning (presumably, a present).

p. 122. On this page the author opposes the nominative pl. forms iś-pi5-ku and iś-ki-nu to the respective oblique forms iś-pí-kí and iś-kí-ni in an attempt to demonstrate that the pl. oblique marker -ē was able to influ-ence the i-vowel of the preceding syllable. This idea is both interesting and convincing.

p. 131. It is hard to agree that *ri!š- rather than *ra!š- “is found” in Ugaritic and “most likely underlies” Geez r3!s. In Ugaritic, !i is generally thought to stand for ! + Ø preceded by any vowel and therefore is not indicative of the root vocalism. As for Geez, 3 in r3!(3)s (so LGz. 458) can be easily derived from *a through the well-known laryngeal rule (Gragg 1997:180–1).28 In any case, it is strange that rāšum ~ rēšum is discussed with no mention of the virtually identical pair ´ānum ~ ´ēnum.

p. 133. To the only example of etymological *γ in the Diyala region mentioned on this page (´a-a¶-ra ‘they are small’) one should probably

27 It may be observed in passing that the translation ‘drooling mouth’ (CAD R

437) is applicable to pāki ša ru-GA-tim as a whole but not to the latter word alone (as done on pp. 85, 131 of the book under review).

28 As S. Loesov kindly points out to us, the Syriac picture is not as easy as this. As emphasized in Blau 1998:300–301, PS *ra!š- is expected to yield reš rather than the attested riš in the West Syriac pronunciation tradition. Blau (who also mentions Ugr. !i) cautiously wonders whether “in Proto-Semitic *ra!š and *ri!š alternated”.

568 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies add túgna-a¶-pá[-ru-um] and túgna-a¶-pá-ar in MAD 1 169 II 2 and 3. This term, obviously denoting a kind of garment, can be plausibly compared to Common Semitic *γpr ‘to cover, to coat, to hide’ discussed in Kogan 2001:279. Its regular reflex in later Akkadian is apāru ‘to provide with a headdress’ but as pointed ibid., there is at least one example of a ¶-spelling for this verb. For a designation of a garment derived from this root v. Ugaritic γprt ‘name of a garment’ (DUL 323, discussion).

p. 136. Contrary to the author’s opinion, some kind of lateral articula-tion of Š < *š, *ŝ is hard to avoid at least for Babylonian in view of the change št > lt, observable already in OB (v. most recently Streck 2006:238, 243ff. with references to many earlier studies beyond Swiggers 1980).

p. 140. The author’s reconstruction of *srg as the Proto-Semitic root underlying śi-ir-gu-a in MAD 5 8:25 “on the basis of Arabic and Geez” is somewhat simplified. On the one hand, the relevance of s in Geez for etymological purposes is limited in view of the well-known orthographic merger of s and ŝ. On the other hand, Hbr. ŝrg points to *ŝ. Given the fact that comparable forms are also attested in Arabic (šr³ ‘mêler, mélanger l’un avec l’autre’, BK 2 1211, šarī³āni ‘deux couleurs différentes, deux fils ou tresses de couleur différente dans un tissue ou dans une natte’, ibid. 1212) the alternative reconstruction *ŝrg is at least no less probable.

pp. 141–142. On these pages a few examples of the use of the ŠV se-ries for the etymological *š and *ŝ from Diyala and Gasur are mentioned. To these one should probably add the use of ŠA in the causative prefix in [u-š]a-ti-£ú-ni ‘he made cross’ in MC 4 73:18 (possibly from Mukdan ac-cording to the editors). The formulary of the “bukānu-clause” and the surviving traces scarcely leave any alternative to this admittedly unexpected orthography.

pp. 143–144. On these pages an up-to-date exposition of the fusion of the word-final sibilants and dentals with the š- of pronominal enclictis in Sargonic is proposed. No attempt to systematic comparison between the Sargonic picture and that of Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian is made, however, which would be only apropriate for a study with such a strong comparative trend as Hasselbach’s. A brief comparative overview will therefore be not superfluous in the present context.

As is well known, word-final dental + š- yields ZV-spellings almost everywhere in OB (Goetze 1958:138) as well as in OA (Hecker 1968:65). The Sargonic picture is largely identical and the interpretation of Z as an affricate and S as /s/ proposed in Faber 1985 has legitimately acquired a universal popularity in recent literature.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 569

More intriguing from the comparative point of view are those exam-ples when š-enclitics are added to words ending in a sibilant. In Sargonic, the outcome is -VS-SV (Hasselbach 2005:144), i. e. both segments are preserved intact. In some of the OB orthographic varieties (“southern OB” in Goetze’s terminology, 1958:140 et passim)29 the picture is formally the same but essentially quite different: whereas Sargonic SV signs are standard renderings of all reflexes of *š and *ŝ, in southern OB they are almost entirely reserved for the position under discussion30 (the reflexes of *š and *ŝ, together with that of *¬, are rendered with ŠV signs as eve-rywhere in OB). The most likely explanation is that the shift s > š, pre-sumably regular in all varieties of OB, was blocked in this particular posi-tion in the southern variety. To put it differently, there is no phonetic development -š + š- > -ss- in southern OB; rather, the old combination -s + s- is preserved.31 The reasons behind this preservation are admittedly uncertain but so is the background of the whole complex of phenomena which are observed on the border of -S/-T and š- of the pronominal encli-tics: none of them is a regular phonological shift but rather morphologi-cally restricted (morphophonemic) developments (cf. Streck 2006:231 for a differently formulated but essentially similar approach to this question).

More difficult to explain is the well-known fact that in some ortho-graphic varieties of OB (“northern OB” in Goetze 1958), the outcome of

29 Goetze’s evidence and conclusions have been seriously criticized in such re-

cent studies as Streck 2006:213 and Westenholz 2006:253. This criticism (notably, a few factual corrections of Goetze’s examples) appears to be essentially justified although it may be observed that neither Streck nor Westenholz provide much evidence from those OB corpora which played the most crucial role in Goetze’s contribution (Larsa, Uruk, Ur; Sippar, Dilbat; Susa).

30 Why the same spelling persisted in a handful of lexemes with š (with diver-gent etymological background) is likely to remain a mystery for quite a while. Generally speaking, a consonantal system with š but no s is unusual so that pres-ervation of the latter, even if in some restricted morphological and lexical envi-ronments, is a priori not unexpected.

31 As plainly suggested already in Goetze 1958:148: “To me it seems prefer-able to consider the exceptional treatment as the remnant of something old ... I would state that … generally Old Akkadian ś became Old Babylonian š, but that … in the position after sibilants and dentals ś was preserved” (cf. also Faber 1985: 105). Goetze is right to apply his observation also to the combination -T + š-: its evolution into the affricate c (ts) suggested in Faber 1985 must go back to a pre-OB period when the pronominal enclitics began with /s/ rather than /š/.

570 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies sibilant + š- is (VZ)-ZV.32 It can hardly be doubted that the spellings mu-ZA ‘her husband’ (CH XXIX:70), i¶-¶a-AZ-ZI ‘he will take her’ (CH XXX: 25) and er-re-ZA ‘her agricultural worker’ (CH XXXVIII:7) convey the same phonetic reality. If one agrees with Faber’s hypothesis, this must be affrication: one who accepts that mut-sa yields /mu(c)ca/ (mu-ZA) is ex-pected also to accept that errēs-sa yields /errē(c)ca/ (er-re-ZA). Within this norm, one has to assume, the combination -s + s- not only escaped the general shift š > s, but became similar or identical to the output of the combination -t + s-. This interesting fact is scarcely mentioned in such basic expositions of the affricate theory as Faber 1985 or Diakonoff 1991–2,33 nor in Goetze 1958:148.34 Its phonetic background (emergence of an affricate from a combination of two sibilants) still awaits its evaluation,35 The same is true of the distribution of this phenomenon. In Westenholz 2006:259 its very existence is apparently rejected, er-re-ZA in CH XXXVIII:7 being adduced as the only piece of “inconvenient evidence”. It may be objected, however, that this is in fact the only example of -š + š- from the legal portions of CH (if one follows Westenholz 2006:258 in dis-regarding examples involving the contrast between ZU and SU)36 whereas

32 An important (and no doubt, justified) innovation of both Streck 2006:231

and Westenholz 2006:258 with respect to Goetze 1958 is to treat separately ex-amples ending in -š (a true sibilant) and those ending in -s, -z and -´ (affricates). As observed by both Streck and Westenholz, combination of affricates with -š behave identically to those of dentals with -š.

33 “The Old Babylonian dialect distribution presented by Goetze shows some regions using the Z series for all combinations, suggesting a complicated chain of developments leading up to the uniform use of the S series in Middle Babylo-nian” in Faber 1985:104 is hardly an adequate evaluation of the complex phe-nomenon under discussion (as pointed out also in Streck 2006:246).

34 Where, significantly, the term “affricate” was in fact applied to the combina-tion -t + s- — some forty years before Faber 1985.

35 One wonders whether the peculiar system described by Goetze for OB texts from Susa may provide a clue. In this system, the suffix is written with ZV but what precedes is a VŠ rather than a VZ sign (regrettably, only examples with the sign IŠ are adduced in Goetze 1958:144). Could we understand a spelling like i-£í-IŠ-ZI as reflecting affrication in its incipient stage (/i£īsci/) as opposed to its fully developed appearance in, say, i-£í-IZ-ZU-nu-ši-im (/i£īccunušim/) from a “Northern” text (Goetze 1958:143)?

36 Otherwise, one more pertinent example (contradicting Goetze’s distribution) is at hand, namely er-re-SU in CH XIII:66 (transcribed as er-re-ZU in Goetze 1958: 143 but, as rightly pointed out in Streck 2006:239, SU is clear in both available copies). One has to admit that all the remaining examples listed in Goetze 1958 and Streck 2006:239 also involve ZU, never ZA or ZI.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 571 only two contradicting SI examples from the “North” (Sippar) are ad-duced by Westenholz.

Let us, finally, turn to the Old Assyrian picture. As duly acknowledged by R. Hasselbach, “In OA the combination š + š is, interestingly, written with the Š-series”. The OA practice is thus different from the Sargonic one as well as from both OB systems. What kind of phonetic reality does this orthography conceal? The apparently easiest explanation is that, dif-ferently from OB, the combination -š + š- did not resist the shift of the “general sibilant” to š: *rupus-su ‘its breadth’ simply became rupuš-šu etc. However, there are reasons to believe that it was rather the phonetic na-ture of the “general sibilant” in OA that was different. This can be de-duced from the well-known peculiarity of the OA syllabary which con-stantly uses SI instead of ŠI (conventionally transcribed as ší).37 Con-versely, the regular use of ŠA and ŠU is not affected. The most natural phonetic development accounting for a different realization of a sibilant before i vs. a and u is obviously palatalization: s becomes š before i but remains intact in other environments. The traditional values of the OA sibilant graphemes can thus be reversed: ŠA and ŠU become /sa/ and /su/ whereas SI becomes /ši/.38 If this reversal is correct, the behavior of -š + š- in OA is substantially identical to that in Sargonic: -s + s- did not undergo any changes. Formally, this picture is identical to that observable in the “Southern” OB norm, but the fundamental difference is not to be ne-glected: in “Southern” OB, the “general sibilant” preserved its s-pronun-ciation only in this position, whereas in OA (as in Sargonic) its shift into š

37 The use of other signs of the SV series is very restricted in OA (v. Hecker

1968:59 about SÁ, SA and SU). In this sense, the OA system is similar to the “south-ern” OB one: only two series (the “general sibilant” ŠV and the “general affri-cate” ZV) are normally used. In such a system, the SV series is, in principle, un-necessary. Nevertheless, when one of the “general sibilant” signs (ŠI) was felt phonetically inappropriate, the scribes did recur to a SV sign (SI) to mark the necessary phonetic distinction.

38 This is of course in agreement with the widely acknowledged interpretation of ŠV and SV signs in later Assyrian (Kaufman 1974:140–141, Mankowski 2000: 155–156). That OA Š represents something quite different from /š/ has been suggested, on other grounds, also by K. Hecker: “es besteht wohl kein Anlass, die für die Boğ.-Texte erfolgte Gleichsetzung von z und š mit gesprochenem t + s bzw. s für das aA zu bezweifeln” (1968:63); “Damit wird eine Aussprache von š wie sch in Deutschen … für das aA ziemlich unwahrscheinlich” (ibid. 64); note that the former statement apparently suggests that the ZV series was interpreted as affricate by Hecker—as early as in 1968. Finally, cf. Hasselbach 2005:234 where *s/s1 = [s] is adduced as a Sargonic-Assyrian isogloss.

572 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies did not take place at all (the spelling with Š being a purely orthographic phenomenon with no phonetic implications).

p. 151. On this page R. Hasselbach makes an interesting suggestion according to which the appearance of the 1 sg. possessive enclitic -ī in Sargonic (as opposed to -īya in later dialects) may be due to the fact the case vowel has not yet become long in this period. She aptly compares this phenomenon with a similar picture in Classical Arabic where -ya is present only after long vowels.

p. 153. It is not correct that “the 3cd possessive suffix is not attested in syllabic Sargonic texts”. Two such examples have been detected by R. Whiting (1972:334): al-śu-ni ‘against them’ in HSS 10 59:9 and ¢up-pí-śu-ni ‘the tablets of these two’ in Ad 3:6 (note that the dual accusative in-dependent form from the same letter is duly recognized by the author on p. 149). These forms have been compared to their counterparts in early Mari by A. Westenholz (1978:165).

p. 155. The author’s attempt to explain the orthographic difference between the 3 m. sg. possessive (-SU) and accusative (-SU4) enclitics does not seem successful. It is of course possible (and even likely) that the ac-cusative form was closer to the nominative one (or at least perceived as such) and the author’s ingenious explanation of the typically Akkadian contrast between the genitive -ša and the accusative -ši in 3 sg. f. likely points in this direction. This observation, nevertheless, only shifts the problem to a different level without solving it. The fundamental question remains unanswered: why, then, the nominative form was systematically written in this peculiar way? As one infers from p. 71, the author does not find attractive the opposition in quality (-u vs. -o) suggested in Som-merfeld 2003b:7139 but does not suggest any alternative explanation.

p. 156. On this page the difficult problem of abbreviated vs. non-abbreviated forms of the 3 sg. m. accusative enclitic is discussed. The au-thor observes that in each of the three abbreviated forms in her corpus

39 Without pretending to support or to disprove Sommerfeld’s hypothesis,

one may observe that such a distinction in quality does actually occur in Geez: while -u is the basic form of the enclitic when attached to nouns in the nomina-tive, it mostly appears as -o with verbal forms (Tropper 2002:44–45). Importantly, this -o is not restricted to the perfect (nagar-ó) where it could be explained as re-sulting from a fusion of -(h)u with the preceding a (as indeed happens with nomi-nal forms in the accusative) but appears after all finite verbal forms (y3nagg3r-ó, y3ng4rr-o, n3g4rr-o) for which no a-Auslaut is conceivable. What happened to the independent nominative forms is impossible to know as they did not survive in Ethiopian Semitic in their original shape.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 573 the preceding vowel is ū (ú-wa-e-ru-uś, u-ru-uś, li-ru-ru-uś). It is not diffi-cult to notice that two of the three examples of the non-contracted forms also involve -ū, at least in the transcription accepted by the author (tár-a-mu-śú, a-ga-ma-lu-śú). There is a difference, however: in the latter exam-ples, the length of the subjunctive marker, if indeed present, is clearly secondary whereas in the former ones either a morphological length, or contraction are involved.

p. 163. For an additional attestation of the fem. pl. of the relative pro-noun (in the nominative) see possibly 3 ¶a-sà-pu ZABAR ša-at A-d[a?] (MAD 5 39:4′, Kish; list of commodities).

p. 166. The adverbial interpretation of warkium (‘afterwards’) differs from the commonly accepted attributive one (cf. ‘later in time’ (said of de-liveries) in CAD A2 286 and ‘später (Zuteilung, Sendung, Brief, usw.)’ in AHw. 1470). It seems that for each of the three passages it is the attributive interpretation that the context suggests: ŠE wa-ar-ki-um ‘later (delivered) barley’ (HSS 10 69:5), ik-ZUM šu GUR7 wa-ar-kí-im (MAD 1 270:3),40 DABIN … wa-ar-ki8-um ‘later (delivered) tapinnu-flour’ (MAD 1 229:13).41

p. 176. lu tu-mu-at (Ad 12:10) is to be qualified as “main clause” rather than as “oath” (the oath is what follows).

p. 177. Note that u of apodosis is well attested in Old Assyrian (Hecker 1968:235–236) to which the definition “some peripheral Akkadian texts” cannot possibly be applied.

p. 179. There is no special section where a representative list of dual forms could be located, which is a pity in view of the productivity of this phenomenon in Sargonic. Quite a number of such examples can be gleaned from the lexical index, to which sú-sú-la-an ‘two baskets’ (OAIC 7: 19), 2 giša-sà-an ‘two myrtle trees’ (OAIC 33 I 5), 2 la-a¶-ma-an ‘two la¶mu-figures’ (OSP 2 24:2) and 2 tù-śa-an ‘two tuššu-garments’ (OSP 2 25:2) can be added.

p. 182. Examples adduced to show that the nominative singular con-struct ending -u was occasionally preserved in Sargonic are not entirely convincing. The occurrence from MAD 1 210:7 (me-e¶-ru DUB LUGAL) is, as Sommerfeld shows, to be analyzed as plural (Sommerfeld 1999:87). A plural form is also quite likely in the case of MAD 1 313:5 (60 bi-ra-¶u ŠÚM) since the item counted usually appears in the plural (the author also

40 The present reviewers have no explanation for the difficult ik-ZUM which,

however, scarcely affects the syntactic nature of wa-ar-kí-im in this passage (clearly attributive, cf. CAD I 66: ik-zum ša karîm warkîm).

41 Cf. Sommerfeld 1999:112.

574 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies reckons with such a possibility). Also the fourth example is not without problems: zi-bí-bí-a-num (which follows 1 na-sà-pu in BIN 8 267:3, 15) is interpreted as a personal name by the author but in fact we are likely dealing with an appellative denoting a spice (‘black cumin’, CAD Z 103, N2 32), an interpretation supported by the occurrence of 1 na-sà-pu Ì.ŠAÚ and 1 na-sà-pu Ú.TIR in lines 3 and 15 of this text respectively. The nomi-native ending of zi-bí-bí-a-núm does not readily invite to interpret this form as nomen rectum which possibly suggests that na-sà-pu zi-bí-bí-a-núm is not a genitive construction but something else (admittedly, no convinc-ing explanation is at hand). The same considerations are likely to be ap-plied to the author’s third example where the hypothetic nomen rectum is written logographically (1 śu-kà-nu KÙ.BABBAR in OIP 104 40 A II 12).

p. 187. The numeral ar-ba-um ‘four’, even if attested as an attribute, is probably not to be listed among “the adjectives used in Sargonic Ak-kadian syllabic texts”.

ibid. The author’s objection to D. Testen attempts (1992, 1994, 2000) to prove the validity of Barth’s Law in Akkadian (“Testen’s approach faces several problems since it assumes two very different developments for original I-w and I-y roots although both have an initial semivowel”) is unclear: that verbs Iw and Iy have essentially different paradigms in many Semitic languages is no theory but a self-evident fact. As one of the present reviewers tried to demonstrate, some important aspects of Testen’s theory are indeed to be revised which does not, however, un-dermine its fundamental validity and its enormous importance for our understanding of early Semitic verbal system (Kogan 2004b).

p. 188. The nouns ¶u-lu-£á-um (MAD 1 21 Rs. 2) and ru-ù-ba-um (HSS 10 175 III 9) are to be added to the list of purussā!um-formations.

p. 193. It is not clear why the forms tá-ni-al and ú-má should suggest that niālum and wamā!um are a ~ a verbs. As for kalā!um, it does not ap-pear in the Index and does not seem to be attested in Sargonic (OA, OB on according to CAD K 95).

p. 210. The list of the attested examples of infinitive forms is to be ex-panded with šu pá-śa-rí-im (MAD 1 332 Rev. 5)42 for the G-stem and šu pu-ru-im (ibid. 5)43 for the D-stem.

42 Listed under the meaning 7 ‘to pack, apportion (grain into standard ves-

sels)’ in CAD P 241. 43 Meaning uncertain, cf. CAD B 120, MAD 3 100.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 575

p. 212. An additional example of a N-stem form is probably attested in Tutub 48 II 7 (list of animals): šu-ut iś-te4 Šu-[x] i-ma-<ri>-[ù] (Sommerfeld 1999:107).

ibid. For an additional example of the D-stem verbal adjective v. ù-¶u-ru-tum (MAD 1 207:10), translated as ‘left behind’ in MAD 3 23.

p. 216. The form i-tár-śu-ni-iś-ma (Nar 1 3:2) can hardly be qualified as G-preterite.

p. 222. The author’s attempt to treat the forms i-da/ti-da ‘I/you know’ and i-SU/ti-SU ‘I/you have’ together with regular verbs Iw is difficult to ac-cept.

As explained in fn. 202 of the book under review, “the verb edûm is normalized with a short prefix vowel44 because of the derivation as I-w verb that lost its initial radical in this verbal form.”45 It is fairly obvious, however, that the forms i-da/ti-da cannot be derived from a Iw root according to the regular rules of Akkadian verbal morphology, which would yield *u-di /yadi(")/. Accordingly, both quality and quantity of the prefix vowel in such forms as u-bìl ‘he brought’ (/yubil/ or /yūbil/, depending of one’s diachronic evaluation of such forms) is simply irrelevant for our understanding of the nature of the prefix vowel in i-da/ti-da. D. Testen’s explanation of these pe-culiar forms through the actuation of Barth’s Law (Testen 2000) is a fairly attractive solution (possibly, the only conceivable one). R. Hasselbach is of course aware of Testen’s contributions to this problem but leaves them practically without comment. She also mentions the possibility of deriving i-da/ti-da from a root Iy rather than Iw (which alone would be sufficient not to treat these forms together with the normal Iw forms) but does not de-velop this idea in spite of the fact that precisely the Sargonic dialect seems to yield additional arguments for such an interpretation (cf. the author’s comments on the participle me-da-a).46

As for i-SU/ti-SU, their adequate diachronic interpretation is blocked by the author’s reluctance to deal with the comparative background of this “etymologically unclear” verb whose derivation is qualified as “uncer-tain”. This is, however, clearly not the case. As is well known, the imme-diate predecessor of Akk. išû is attested as i-ša-wu in VE 624 and 789 (= a-gál and an-gál respectively). The interpretaion of i-ša-wu as /yi¬āwu/ and that of the underlying PS root as *y¬w is not in doubt (Conti 1990:172, 190; Krebernik 1983:24) and it is from this prototype that any attempt to

44 I. e., /yida"/ and /tida"/. 45 It is unclear why the corresponding OB form is still transcribed as īde on p. 83. 46 For a different interpretation of this form v. Sommerfeld 2003a:571.

576 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies reconstruct the morphology of the prefix conjugation of Akkadian išû should take its departure.47 The i-vocalism of the prefix can only be ex-plained as a result of contraction of *-iy- > ī as becomes clear from the OA form i-šu ‘I have’: the first syllable of this form can only be recon-structed as *!iy- since *!ay- would yield e- in Assyrian.48 That we are faced with a phenomenon somehow related to that underlying the forms i-da/ti-da is clear and one has to agree with R. Hasselbach that Testen’s reluc-tance to recognize this fact is strange. The reasons behind this reluctance are not difficult to guess, however: for Testen, the i-vocalism of the prefix must be conditioned by the a-vocalism of the base, something he easily recognized in ti-da but apparently missed in ti-SU. Nevertheless, there is no obstacle for reconstructing an original a-vocalism for the latter form, too: ti-SU is a perfectly regular reflex of *ti-y¬aw (“The original diphtong *aw is written with signs otherwise used for Cu”, Hasselbach 2005:93).49 Yet, as pointed out in Kogan 2004b, such forms as īsim < *yi-wsim ‘he was suitable’ do not readily invite the conclusion that the actuation of Barth’s Law in Akkadian was phonetically conditioned. If, as suggested in the lat-ter contribution, only semantic factors were in work, an alternative re-construction *ti-y¬uw is also possible.

p. 224. The list of Iw verbs in the Š-stem does not include any form of the present. The two occurrences which can be potentially identified as

47 Surprisingly enough, in his hypercritical evaluation of the relationship be-

tween išû and such West Semitic forms as Hebrew yēš D. Testen (2000:86) does not even mention the Eblaite form. Contra Testen, the SU-spelling of i-SU and ti-SU is by no means an obstacle for deriving these forms from *y¬w: as one learns from Hasselbach 2005:135ff., there is hardly a single example of *¬u written with ŠU in her corpus outside the relative pronoun! Arabic laysa (and !aysa!) is of course en-igmatic but scarcely overweighs the cumulative evidence for *¬ provided by Ebla-ite, Ugaritic and Aramaic.

48 Sargonic ti-SU is not relevant in this respect as ti can stay for both tī and tē (Hasselbach 2005:54ff.). Similarly, OB i-šu ‘I have’ and ti-šu ‘you have’ are not rele-vant as both *iy and *ay yield ī in Babylonian. Finally, 3 sg. masc. forms from all dia-lects are not relevant since the 3 sg. masc. prefix (*yi-) is an i-prefix “by nature”.

49 One may wonder about the motivation for the a-vocalism in this verb. This question is admittedly difficult but so is the diachronic evaluation of the whole a-preterite class in Akkadian. If one believes that a in such verbs is motivated by their stative meaning (leaving aside such obviously transitive examples as im¶a´ ‘he stroke’), such a low transitivity verb as ‘to have’ is not unsuitable for this explanation (moreover, the West Semitic evidence—and, probably, also the Eblaite one—sug-gests ‘to be’ as a more original meaning).

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 577 such are e-śé-´i (MDP 14 90:6) and ni-śé-bí-lam (Eš 2 Rs. 7′).50 No convinc-ing explanation for these unusual forms has been suggested so far.51

The concluding fifth chapter of the book (pp. 231–235) deals with the hotly debated question of the genealogical position of Sargonic within Akkadian. The author’s discussion of this topic is marked by two meth-odological premises: on the one hand, only shared innovations (rather than common retentions) are considered as valid criteria in dialect sub-grouping; on the other hand, the language of the Sargonic corpus is not treated as a homogeneous unity but rather different sub-corpora are dis-cussed separately. Both premises are a priori sound and the author is to be congratulated for her methodological consistency.

On p. 234 seven Babylonian-like morphological features observable in the Sargonic corpus are listed:

– acc. dual pronominal suffix with /t/, -sunēti; – dat. dual pronominal suffix with /s/, -sunēsim; – third person precative li- and 1 cs lu-; – subordinate marker -� on verbal bases ending in vowel; – D-stem infinitive and verbal adjective purrus; – D-stem of roots II-w with contraction (yukēn); – preposition ana.

According to the author, all these features are “distinct Babylonian innovations” and, therefore, suggest that “Sargonic Akkadian, more spe-cifically, the dialect of the Diyala region, most likely shares a common an-cestor with later Babylonian, and might even be considered an early stage of Babylonian”. The author is less sure about the dialectal attribution of the language of Sargonic literary texts and southern Babylonia but, nev-ertheless, tends to apply the above conclusions to these corpora, too.

Indeed, some of the features adduced in the list are widely recognized Babylonian-like innovations: the D-stem infinitive and verbal adjective purrus- as opposed to Assyrian parrus-52 as well as the contracted form of the D preterite yukēn as opposed to Assyrian uka!!in (for both features v.,

50 In the fn. 67 on p. 45 the author interprets this form as lí-śé-bí-lam (follow-

ing Kienast–Volk 1995:143), admitting that the spelling of the precative marker with lí is unusual (note that the form is incorrectly rendered as li-se11-bí-lam on pp. 42, 51 and 141 as well as in the Index, p. 289).

51 Cf. Sommerfeld 2003a:580–581. 52 The same applies to the Š infinitive, missing from the grammar but attested

as in śum-lu-ì-śu ‘when he fills’ in MDP 14 90:13 (Gelb 1961:169).

578 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies e. g., Sommerfeld 2003a:569).53 The Babylonian-like vocalism of the pre-cative markers is probably relevant, too, although it may be observed that J. Huehnergard’s reconstruction of the corresponding phonological evo-lution (1983:586ff.) is not entirely free from difficulties.54

Other Babylonian-like features are, however, considerably more prob-lematic.

In her reconstruction of the endings of the subjunctive, the author convincingly suggests that originally -u was used after consonants and -ni after vowels (p. 208). That -ni is not used in such cases in Babylonian is thought to be an innovation shared by two Sargonic examples from the Diyala region (i-mu-ru and e-mu-ru in MAD 1 336:20 and OAIC 6:10 re-spectively). However, exactly the same way of reasoning can be applied to such forms as u-śa-sà-ku-ni (Man 1:55) and a-TU-mu-ni (Di 2:15, the same Diyala region!) where -ni is used pleonastically after -u in 3 sg. masc. and 1 sg.:55 the spread of -ni to such forms is an innovation which, outside Sargonic, is only attested in Assyrian (not rare already in OA, Hecker 1968:134). The same considerations are likely to be applied to the use of -ni after the ventive marker, as in u-ur-da-ni in BIN 8 134:9.

Very complicated, both descriptively and diachronically, is the situa-tion with accusative and dative 2 and 3 pl. pronominal enclitics. Their evaluation by the author is heavily dominated by the assumption that Babylonian-like forms in -š- (-šunūšim etc.) represent an innovation. This assumption, however, is subject to two fundamental objections.

On the one hand, a methodologically sound distinction between re-tentions and innovations is only possible if a convincing explanation of the origin of this or that innovative feature in the grammar (and the lexi-con) is proposed. “New” morphological features as well as “new” lexemes

53 As far as the latter feature is concerned, one may wonder whether such a relatively trivial phonetic development as contraction *-ayyi- > -ē- (> ī) can be of so much relevance for classification.

54 Thus, in spite of Huehnergard’s arguments (1983:574–575), it is not easy to separate lū in the Assyrian forms lū niprus and lū taprus from the precative marker reconstructed by him as *la. Furthermore, the Babylonian form luprus cannot be regularly derived from *la-!aprus and the analogy with the corresponding D and Š forms (presumably much rarer in use) suggested ibid. 588 is not very attractive. On this question see most recently Stein 2003:1984 who reconstructs *li- for Sabaic.

55 One more such example most probably comes from MC 4 73:18 (ŠU.NIGIN2 11 AB×ÁŠ šu-ut PN1 PN2 a-na áš-rí <x>-gi-im GIŠ.GANA [u-š]a-ti-£ú-ni translated as ‘to-tal of eleven witnesses (to the fact) that PN1 made PN2 cross over the pestle for/in the place of …’). For the importance of this document for the history of the “bukānu-clause” see further Steinkeller 1989:35, 39.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 579 do not emerge from nothing but are to be traced to other (presumably, more archaic) forms and functions (or meanings). As one learns from p. 148 of R. Hasselbach’s book, she was unable to establish the origin of the “innovative” š-forms. This is not surprising since such forms may well be not innovative at all: already von Soden (1933:118–121) was able to propose an extensive comparative overview of possible relationship be-tween the Akkadian dative forms in -š- (not separated by him from the locative -iš)56 and dative postpositions in -s in Central Cushitic (most re-cently acknowledged in Huehnergard 2006:11–12).57 But even if this ex-ternal evidence is disregarded, one cannot treat the š-forms as innovative just because they are not present in any other Semitic language: as rightly observed in Huehnergard 2006:3, “Akkadian (or Akkadian and Eblaite) must, in a real sense, be given weight equal to the rest of the lan-guages, because the latter only constitute a single branch: a feature pre-sent in Akkadian but absent everywhere else may simply have been lost once, in Proto-West Semitic”.

On the other hand, pronominal enclitics of each particular dialect are not to be discussed separately but rather as a system. When the author states that “the t-forms are more archaic in the pronominal system than the š-forms” because “pronouns with /t/ are also known from other an-cient Semitic and Afro-Asiatic languages such as Egyptian and Ugaritic” (p. 147), one cannot but observe: of course they are, but only as genitive-accusative, not as dative! As is well known, the Akkadian pronominal sys-tem is unique in its consistent distinction between accusative and dative enclitics, distinction which in some way or other is carried out in each of the three dialects (Babylonian, Assyrian, Sargonic). It is hard to under-stand why the Assyrian subsystem, which re-uses the old accusative mark-ers to express the dative and leaves the accusative unmarked with respect to the genitive, should be treated as archaic whereas the Babylonian sys-tem, where the old accusative marker continues to display its original function, as innovative.

56 So also Huehnergard 2006:11. 57 Huehnergard (2006:12) recognizes the Proto-Semitic and Proto-Akkadian

status of the independent š-forms but considers innovative their use as enclitics. As far as the present discussion is concerned, this hypothesis does not change much. Loss of š-forms (even if only independent) is at any rate an Assyrian inno-vation. That both Babylonian and Eblaite re-used the independent dative š-forms (which they preserved) as dative enclitics is only natural and need not be a shared development.

580 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies

It is upon this background that the Sargonic system is to be evaluated. In Sommerfeld 2003a:580 the Sargonic system is considered to be closer (although not identical) to the Assyrian one.58 For Sommerfeld, the main points of similarity are non-augmented enclitics in the accusative and t-forms in the dative. Does this conclusion correlate with the data collected in the book under review? Sommerfeld’s evidence for non-augmented forms in the accusative comes from OB copies of royal inscriptions where the 3 pl. masc. form -śu-nu is attested several times. Since the correspond-ing OB form is different, no late influence is conceivable in this case so that these forms are likely to be genuine Sargonic. R. Hasselbach (2005: 157) is right to complement these forms with two 3 dual masculine ex-amples: one from an OB copy (u-śá-¶i-śu-ni, Sar C1:102) and one from a Girsu letter (li-śu-´i-aś-śú-ni, Gir 29:12). At the same time, one t-form for 3 dual masculine is attested in a letter from Kish: ´a-ab-t[i]-śu-<ni-ti> (Ki 4:9). All of Sommerfeld’s examples of t-forms for the dative come from per-sonal names in -śi-na-at. Now, these examples are opposed to a 3 du. masc. š-form from a Susa letter (a-£í-iś-śú-ni-śi-im, Su 1:4′). What kind of conclusion can one draw from this evidence? One thing is certain: no homogeneous system can be postulated for Sargonic (in this sense, the synoptic chart in Sommerfeld 2003:580 requires modification). Unfortu-nately, no systematic picture can be achieved for any of the hypothetic sub-corpora: non-augmented accusative forms in royal inscriptions and Girsu are Assyrian-like but no corresponding dative forms are attested. Babylonian-like forms are represented by such unconnected areas as Susa and Kish (no examples from Diyala, the most Babylonian-like area according to Hasselbach!), each of them lacking its paradigmatic coun-terpart. Clearly, “the pronominal system, which plays a crucial role for the subgrouping of Akkadian, does not provide unambiguous evidence for determining the position of Sargonic Akkadian within Akkadian” (Hasselbach 2005:158).

Finally, the diachronic background of the prepositions ina and ana is entirely obscure and the hypothesis according to which the Sargonic pic-ture (in vs. ana) is the original one (p. 168) is speculative.59 Moreover,

58 Dual forms are not studied in Sommerfeld 2003a (as explained on p. 573 of

his study) which is probably not justified in view of the fact that from the struc-tural point of view they are usually identical with the plural forms.

59 Note that to the only (doubtful) example of assimilated -n (presumably from an-) mentioned on p. 167 one should probably add a-śú-at (Ad 3:22) translated as

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 581 even within this reconstruction the presence of ana in both Sargonic and Babylonian is an archaism rather than a shared innovation.

At least one Assyrian-like feature has not been taken into considera-tion. As is well known, sequences of three open syllables with short vowels are treated differently in Babylonian and Assyrian: Proto-Akkadian *pi-ta-ru-sum yields Babylonian pitrusum but Assyrian pitarsum (Greenstein 1977:69–73). As duly acknowledged on p. 213, the form e-tám-da in MAD 5 8:37 is in agreement with the Assyrian picture.

To sum up, one may observe that the evidence of the available Sar-gonic texts is not sufficient for a definite conclusion about its genealogical setting. Neither Babylonian-like nor Assyrian-like innovative features are numerous enough to propose a coherent classification pattern.

The author is to be credited for compiling a list of Sargonic texts writ-ten in Akkadian, a very useful tool, especially as far as administrative documents are concerned (section 7, pp. 251–262). The list is to be sup-plemented with Nos. 35–37, 39–42 and 44 from MC 4 (Mesag archive), note a-na, in, ù in No. 35, šu passim in Nos. 36–37 and 39–41, im-¶ur in No. 42, al, i-ba-šè, u-ba-lam in No. 44).

A very useful aspect of the book under review is the “Index of words cited” (section 8, pp. 262–292), actually a small but well-organized Sar-gonic glossary where every form discussed in the grammar is adduced (in transliteration, analytical transcription and translation) and provided with the relevant page numbers. In addition, to use the author’s own words, “etymologies are provided where possible”. It is the latter aspect of the Index—a very attractive but, in principle, also an optional one—that appears to be most open to criticism.

First and foremost, the author does not explain what exactly she means by etymology. Does she refer to the Proto-Semitic reconstructions from which an Akkadian form is derived? Most probably not: at least two PS phonemes (the lateral and interdental emphatics *¹ and *Î) never ap-pear after the asterisks even if their reconstruction is universally recog-nized (thus, er´etum ‘land’ is listed under *!RÔ, ma¶ā´um ‘to strike’ under *MÚÔ, na´ārum under *NÔR, ´abātum ‘to seize’ under *ÔBT, ´ēnum under *Ô!N, wa´ûm under *WÔ!). Are only those consonantal oppositions which are pertinent for the historical phonology of the Sargonic dialect ob-served? This would be not unreasonable: as is well known, some of the PS

‘deshalb’ in Kienast–Volk 1995:40. This form is also missing from p. 149 where independent oblique forms of personal pronouns are discussed.

582 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies consonants were lost in Akkadian before its first written documents ap-peared and are, therefore, quite irrelevant for the book’s purpose. Never-theless, here too the answer seems to be negative: the etymology of a¶āzum ‘to take’ and izuzzum ‘to stand’ is adduced as *!ÚD_ and *D_WD_ respectively in spite of the fact that nowhere in the book it is supposed that *¯ and *z were kept apart in Sargonic (rather the contrary, cf. pp. 72–73).60 Similarly, ašārum ‘to provide’ is listed under *!ŚR, našûm ‘to raise’ under *NŚ!, šadûm under *ŚDW and šībum ‘elder’ under *ŚYB etc. in spite of the fact that no distinction between *š and *ŝ has been ever postulated for Akkadian.

The second query is that etymologies are never justified by parallels from cognate languages, not even by short references to the pertinent tools of his-torical lexicography. There is no need to stress that in many cases such ref-erences would be superfluous since most of the relevant etymologies are quite straightforward and well known to every Semitist (possibly, although less certainly, also to most Assyriologists). Nevertheless, for quite a number of lexemes this is clearly not the case. Here belong pašā¶um ‘to find peace’ (*PT_Ú), 61 puš£um ‘hardship’ (*PŠQ), 62 ¶anāmum ‘to bloom’ (*ÚNM), 63 kašādum ‘to reach’ (*KSD),64 na¶āsum ‘to return’ (*NÚtS),65 na¶šum ‘rich’ (*NÚS),66 za£ārum Št ‘to bring high’ (*ZQR),67 ar¶iš ‘quickly’ (*!RÚ),68 ašārum

60 At the same time, for a few other (and no less transparent) cases like ezēbum

‘to leave’ or za£ānum ‘to be bearded’ no *¯ is adduced in the proto-form. 61 No etymology with either *¶ or *¬ known to us. In AHw. 840 compared to

Arabic fsµ ‘élargir, rendre à qn. un endroit plus spacieux’ (BK 1 591), note espe-cially VII ‘se trouver à son aise (se dit de la poitrine, du cœur quand la joie suc-cède à l’angoisse’ (ibid. 592). In LGz. 168 the Arabic and Akkadian terms are fur-ther compared to Geez tafaŝŝ3µa ‘to rejoice’ and Sabaic h-fs2µ ‘cause to rejoice’ (SD 46) in spite of the irregular sibilants (note that h-fs1µ ‘to enlarge structure’, m-fs1µ-t ‘enlargement’ with s1 also seem to be attested in Sabaic, SD 46).

62 No convincing etymology at all. Syriac p3šī£ā ‘facilis’ (Brock. 613) compared by von Soden is hardly compatible semantically. Cf. perhaps Arabic fs£ ‘sortir de son enveloppe (se dit d’une datte quand elle est déjà mûre)’ (BK 2 594), from an original meaning ‘to be narrow’?

63 No convincing etymology. Faute de mieux, one may tentatively compare Ara-bic γnm ‘gagner qch. sans peine, sans travailler’, γanam- ‘gain, profit; bonne for-tune; succès, victoire’ (BK 2 511).

64 No etymology. 65 No convincing etymology. A phonetically possible comparison with Arabic

n¶š ‘maigrir’ (BK 2 1221) is semantically very unlikely. 66 No etymology. 67 No etymology. 68 No etymology.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 583 ‘to provide’ (*!ŚR), 69 ma¢ûm ‘to become less’ (*MàY), 70 šasûm ‘to call’ (*StSY),71 šiptum ‘incantation’ (*WSP).72

Needless to say, the origin of the author’s etymological decisions in such cases is very difficult to ascertain. This problem is not a merely ety-mological one since some of the terms under discussion are used by the author in her discussion of important phenomena of Sargonic orthogra-phy and phonology (thus, for example, the attestation of pašā¶um in MAD 5 8:38 is adduced as an example of *¬ written with a sign of the Š-series on p. 140).

Thirdly, some lexemes are adduced with no etymology in spite of the fact that there is a generally recognized one: bâ!um ‘to come’ (< *bw!),73 išûm ‘to have’ (< *y¬w),74 nêrum ‘to conquer’ (< *nµr),75 sā£um ‘thigh’ (< *šā£-).76

Finally, a number of concrete etymologies appear problematic: mūrum ‘foal’ is from *muhr- (SED II No. 149) rather than *mr!; šâmum ‘to buy’ and šīmum ‘price’ are from *ŝ!m rather than *š!m;77 marûm ‘to fatten’ is from *mr! (DUL 570) rather than from *mry. Derivation of šimtum ‘mark’ from *ŚYM cannot be excluded but *WSM is by far a more likely proto-

69 No etymology. 70 No convincing etymology. Comparison with Hebrew m3"a¢ ‘to be few’ and

Tigre m3"e¢a ‘thin, slender’ (LH 137), accepted, e. g., in HALOT 611, is very at-tractive from the semantic point of view but presuppose *" (with metathesis) rather than *y in the proto-form.

71 No convincing etymology. Cf. perhaps Geez ŝā!ŝ3!a ‘to speak well, clearly’ (LGz. 524).

72 No etymology. 73 V., e. g., HALOT 112 under Hbr. bw!. 74 V. above under p. 222. 75 Comparison to Arabic nµr ‘to slaughter’ is widely accepted, v., e. g., AHw. 780. 76 V., e. g., SED I No. 241. If the identification of ZA-GI-[X] in MAD 5 8:4 with

this lexeme is correct, the spelling with ZA is of course problematic in view of š in Hebrew and Aramaic.

77 At least, this is the most likely etymology in view of Sabaic s2!m ‘to buy, pur-chase’ (SD 130), h-s2!m ‘sell’ (ibid.), s2!m=hmw ‘(prix) d’achat’ (Ryckmans–Müller–Abdallah 1994:103), Minaean s2!m ‘achat, marchandise’ (LM 85), Qatabanian s2!m ‘to purchase, buy’, s1-s2!m ‘to sell’ (Ricks 164), Hadramitic s2!m-t ‘achat’ (Pirenne 1990:74) as well as Mehri ŝōm ‘to sell’, ŝ$t3m ‘to buy’ (JM 369), Jibbali ŝcm ‘to sell’, ŝCt6m ‘to buy’ (JJ 244), Soqotri ŝíom (ŝó!om) ‘vendre’ (LS 429), v. most recently Kouwenberg 2006:161. To what degree such forms with *š as post-Biblical He-brew šwm ‘to value, to estimate’ (Ja. 1535) and Arabic swm ‘mettre en vente, décla-rer que telle chose est en vente, en en indiquant le prix, coter; offrir à qn. tel ou tel prix d’une chose’ (BK 1 1169), sawm- ‘prix (d’une marchandise)’ (ibid. 1170), sīmat- ‘prix, taux, cote’ (ibid.) can also be related remains to be established.

584 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies type (for the complex etymological background of the Akkadian term v. SED I No. 270). Derivation of epēšum ‘to do’ from *ÑPS contradicts the author’s acceptance of von Soden’s comparison between epēšu and WS forms with *ŝ (cf. p. 117).78

Some entries of the index are problematic from other points of view. Thus, the verb ‘to cut, to fell’ is normalized as patāqum rather than

batāqum which runs counter the practice of the standard dictionaries (CAD B 161, AHw. 114); patāqum means ‘to make brick structures, to smelt, refine; to construct, to create’ (CAD P 273, AHw. 847).

The form ni-ti-KU in Pu 3:7 is listed under egûm (and, accordingly, translated as ‘we neglected’) but normalized as /nītiqu/, presumably from etē£um as in Kienast–Volk 1995:150, 259. It may be observed that if the former interpretation is accepted, TI can only be read as /te/ (te9) and the whole form is to be normalized as /nētegu/. Since no Babylonian vowel harmony seems to be attested in Sargonic (Hasselbach 2005:121), this in-terpretation is quite unlikely. Incidentally, if the normalization /nītiqu/ is accepted, it provides one more example for KU = *£u (cf. above in con-nection with pp. 60–62).

The entry pūtum apparently mixes up būdum ‘shoulder’ and pūtum ‘forehead’.

The author’s approach to kašārum is unclear. The forms ik-śur, ik-śú-ra and ik-śu-ra in OAIC 36 and 14 are rendered as ‘he bound’ whereas for a-kà-śa-ar in Ga 3:15 a more traditional rendering ‘I will replace’ is pre-served. Does this mean that the author has two different verbs in mind (one of them presumably related to Hbr. £šr)? This assumption, however, is not in agreement with the uniform normalization with k for all the four examples.

A few minor infelicities scattered over the volume include /enēya/ > /ēnēya/ (p. 87), /¬inātim/ > /¬īnātim/ (p. 140), DUMU-śa /mārsa/ > /mārūsa/ (p. 153), du-ri-ni /durī(n)ni/ > /dūrī(n)ni/ (p. 154), MÁŠ.ANŠE-me /būlame/ > /būlamme/ (p. 178), Westenholz interprets > [J. and A.] Westenholz inter-pret (p. 180), *yusa¶¶az : *yusā¶is > *yusa¶¶az : *yusā¶iz (p. 226).

78 At the same time, it may be observed that the meanings ‘to search’ (Hebrew

µpŝ, HALOT 341; Sabaic µfs2, SD 66) and ‘to collect’ (Arabic µfš, BK 1 458; Minaean µfs2, LM 47; Geez µafaŝa, LGz. 227; Mehri µ3fūŝ, JM 169) typical of the WS forms under comparison are not particularly close to that of the Akkadian verb (note, however, that Arabic µfš also means ‘s’occuper de quelque chose, s’appliquer à qqch’, BK 1 458).

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 585

In view of the aforementioned, it is rather hard to pronounce an un-ambiguous judgment about the book under review. Its general usefulness is not in doubt and the author’s firm determination to combine the de-scriptive and historical approaches throughout her study can only be congratulated. At the same time, it is rather evident that it does not rep-resent the last word in the fascinating field of Sargonic grammar. References

Archi 2002 Blažek forthcoming Blau 1998 Conti 1990 Diakonoff 1991–2 Dillmann 1906 Dolgopolsky 1991 Faber 1985 Frolova 2001 Frolova 2003 Gelb 1961 Goetze 1958 Gragg 1997 Greenstein 1977 Hasselbach 2005 Hecker 1968 Huehnergard 1983 Huehnergard 1987

Archi, A. Prepositions at Ebla. Eblaitica 4:1–23. Blažek, V. Semitic Prepositions and Their Afroasiatic Cognates. Blau, J. Topics in Hebrew and Semitic Linguistics. Jerusalem. Conti, G. Il sillabario della quarta fonte della lista lessicale bilingue eblaita. Firenze. Diakonoff, I. M. Proto-Afrasian and Old Akkadian. A Study in Historical Phonetics. Princeton. Dillmann, A. Ethiopic Grammar. Ed. C. Bezold, transl. J. A. Critchton. London. Dolgopolsky, A. Two Problems of Semitic Historical Lin-guistics. Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau. Wies-baden. Pp. 328–339. Faber, A. Akkadian Evidence for Proto-Semitic Affri-cates. JCS 37:101–107. Frolova, T. Reconstruction of the Root-Vowel of Common Se-mitic Primary Verbal Roots: Evidence of Akkadian and Arabic. Unpublished MA thesis. Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow. Frolova, T. The Reconstruction of the Vowel in the Proto-Semitic Verbal Base -C1C2VC3-. The Evidence of Akkadian and Arabic. Studia Semitica (Fs. A. Militarev). Moscow. Pp. 79–111. Gelb, I. J. Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar. Chicago. Goetze, A. The Sibilants of Old Babylonian. RA 52:137–149. Gragg, G. Ge"ez Phonology. Phonologies of Africa and Asia. Winona Lake. Pp. 169–186. Greenstein, E. Phonological Studies in Akkadian. Un-published Ph. D. thesis. Columbia University. Hasselbach, R. Sargonic Akkadian. Wiesbaden. Hecker, K. Grammatik der Kültepe-Texte. Rome. Huehnergard, J. Asseverative *la and Hypothetical *lu/*law in Semitic. JAOS 103:569–593. Huehnergard, J. Three Notes on Akkadian Morphology. Working with No Data. Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin. Winona Lake. Pp. 181–193.

586 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies Huehnergard 1999 Huehnergard 2002 Huehnergard 2003 Huehnergard 2006 Kaufman 1974 Kienast–Sommerfeld 1994 Kienast–Volk 1995 Kogan 2001 Kogan 2004a Kogan 2004b Kouwenberg 2006 Krebernik 1983 Krebernik 1985 Krebernik 1991 Kuryłowicz 1950 Kuryłowicz 1972 Lambert 1987 Littmann 1913

Huehnergard, J. On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew nJbî!. EI 26:88–93. Huehnergard, J. Izuzzum and itūlum. Riches Hidden in Secret Places. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen. Winona Lake. Pp. 161–185. Huehnergard, J. Akkadian *¶ and West Semitic *µ. Studia Semitica (Fs. A. Militarev). Moscow. Pp. 102–119. Huehnerard, J. Proto-Semitic and Proto-Akkadian. Ak-kadian Language in Its Semitic Context. Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC. Leiden. Pp. 1–18. Kaufman, S. A. The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic. Chi-cago–London. Kienast, B.; Sommerfeld, W. Glossar zu den altakkadischen Königsinschriften. Stuttgart. Kienast, B.; Volk, K. Die akkadischen und sumerischen Brie-fe des III. Jahrtausends aus der Zeit vor der III. Dynastie von Ur. Stuttgart. Kogan, L. *ġ in Akkadian. UF 33:263–297. Kogan, L. ZI and ÔI in Codex Hammurāpi (with an ap-pendix on the Laws of Ešnunna). B&B 1:13–22. Kogan, L. Notes on Barth’s Law in Akkadian (with an excursus on the history of Semitic verbs Iy). B&B 1:343–348. Kouwenberg, N. J. C. The Proto-Semitic Gutturals in Old Assyrian. Akkadian Language in Its Semitic Context. Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC. Leiden. Pp. 150–176. Krebernik, M. Zu Syllabar und Orthographie der Lexikalischen Texte aus Ebla. Teil 2. ZA 73:1–47. Krebernik, M. Zur Entwicklung der Keilschrift im III. Jahrtausend anhand der Texte aus Ebla – Ein Vergleich zwischen Altakkadischem und Eblaitischem Schriftsys-tem. AfO 32:53–59. Krebernik, M. Review of I. J. Gelb and B. Kienast, Die Altakkadischen Königsinschriften (Stuttgart, 1990). ZA 81: 133–143. Kuryłowicz, J. La mimation et l’article en arabe. ArOr 48: 323–328. Kuryłowicz, J. Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics. Wrocław. Lambert, W. G. Devotion: the Language of Religion and Love. Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East. Lon-don. Pp. 25–39. Littmann, E. Deutsche Aksum-Expedition. IV. Sabäische, griechische und altabessinische Inschriften. Berlin.

R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian… (L. Kogan, K. Markina) 587 Macdonald 2004 Mankowski 2000 Pennacchietti 1974 Pirenne 1990 Ryckmans–Müller–Abdallah 1994 Sanmartín 1995 Sommerfeld 1999 Sommerfeld 2003a Sommerfeld 2003b Stein 2003 Steinkeller 1989 Streck 2006 Swiggers 1980 Testen 1992 Testen 1994 Testen 2000 Tropper 2000 Tropper 2002 Voigt 1999

Macdonald, M. C. A. Ancient North Arabian. The Cam-bridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages. Cam-bridge. Pp. 488–533. Mankowski, P. V. Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew. Winona Lake. Pennacchietti, F. Appunti per una storia comparata dei sistemi preposizionali semitici. AION 34:161–215. Pirenne, J. Fouilles de Shabwa. I. Les témoins écrits de la région de Shabwa et l’histoire. Paris. Ryckmans, J.; Müller, W. W.; Abdallah, Y. Textes du Yémen antique inscrits sur bois. Louvain-la-Neuve. Sanmartín, J. Über Regeln und Ausnahmen: Verhalten des vorkonsonantischen /n/ im ‘Altsemitischen’. Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament (Fs. W. von Soden). Neu-kirchen-Vluyn. Pp. 433–466. Sommerfeld, W. Die Texte der Akkade-Zeit. 1. Das Dijala-Gebiet: Tutub. Münster. Sommerfeld, W. Bemerkungen zur Dialektgliederung Altakkadisch, Altassyrisch und Babylonisch. Festschrift für Burkhart Kienast. Münster. Pp. 569–586. Sommerfeld, W. Der Name Rīmuš. Studia Semitica (Fs. A. Militarev). Moscow. Pp. 407–423. Stein, P. Untersuchungen zur Phonologie und Morphologie des Sabäischen. Rahden. Steinkeller, P. Sale Documents of the Ur-III-Period. Stutt-gart. Streck, M. P. Sibilants in the Old Babylonian Texts of Hammurapi and the Governors of Qa¢¢unān. Akkadian Language in Its Semitic Context. Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC. Leiden. Pp. 215–251. Swiggers, P. A Note on the Phonology of Old Akkadian. OLP 11:5–9. Testen, D. A Trace of the Barth’s Preradical *i in Ak-kadian. JNES 51:131–133. Testen, D. The I-w Verbal Class and the Reconstruction of the Early Semitic Preradical Vocalism. JAOS 114:426–434. Testen, D. Conjugating the ‘Prefixed Stative’ Verbs of Akkadian. JNES 59:81–92. Tropper, J. Ugaritische Grammatik. Münster. Tropper, J. Altäthiopisch. Grammatik des Ge"ez mit Übungs-texten und Glossar. Münster. Voigt, R. Die Präpositionen im Semitischen – Über Mor-phologisierungsprozesse im Semitischen. Tradition and Innovation. Norm and Deviation in Arabic and Semitic Lin-guistics. Wiesbaden. Pp. 22–43.

588 Reviews: Ancient Near Eastern Studies von Soden 1933 Westenholz 1978 Westenholz 1996 Westenholz 2006 Westenholz–Westenholz 1977 Whiting 1972 Wilcke 1985

von Soden, W. Der hymnisch-epische Dialekt des Akka-dischen. ZA 41:90–183. Westenholz, A. Some Notes on the Orthography and Grammar of the Recently Published Texts from Mari. BiOr 35:160–169. Westenholz, A. Review of D. R. Frayne, The Royal Inscrip-tions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods. Vol. 2 (Toronto–Buffalo–London, 1993). BiOr 53:116–123. Westenholz, A. Do not Trust the Assyriologists! Some Remarks on the Transliteration and Normalization of Old Babylonian Akkadian. Akkadian Language in Its Se-mitic Context. Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC. Leiden. Pp. 252–260. Westenholz, J. and A. Help for Rejected Suitors. The Old Akkadian Love Incantation MAD V 8. Or 46:198–219. Whiting, R. M. The Dual Personal Pronouns in Akkadi-an. JNES 31:331–337. Wilcke, C. Liebesbeschwörungen aus Isin. ZA 75:188–209.

L. Kogan and K. Markina