| This dissertation examines the lexico-semantic and morpho-syntactic aspects of Sumerian compound verbs, namely, the verbs that consist of a noun and a verb stem. They are very frequent in Sumerian, and the majority have a noun designating a part of the body as their nominal constituent. The body-part terms serve to indicate involvement in a given expression and thereby render activities, experiences, and situations.;At the core of my lexico-semantic analysis, I treat Sumerian compound verbs as a type of noun incorporation called lexical compounding. Sumerian, which has a very limited lexicon for verbs, heavily relies upon this mechanism to form semantically new but often basic verbs.;As a morpho-syntactic phenomenon, the nominal constituents of compound verbs are coded as Patient-Absolutive. Consequently, the semantic objects of compound verbs with transitive meanings are encoded as oblique arguments in the same way that the important adverbial complements of compound verbs with intransitive meanings are encoded. They are essential oblique arguments for propositions, and formally correspond to the third argument of a ditransitive construction. A close examination of the case coding system shows that the locative-terminative case is used to mark the third most important argument of a compound verb construction in a minimally marked way unless more marked coding is required—that is to say, the locative-terminative has a default function.;This study of the compound verbs, methodologically based on functional-typological perspectives, contributes to our understanding of one aspect of the Sumerian verbal system and to the typology of noun incorporation. |
