1. Introduction
1.1. Literature review
The scholar who discovered the Akkadian ventive and gave it its present name was Benno Landsberger (Reference Landsberger1924).Footnote 1 He demonstrated that the -am/-nim/-m marker hosted on the finite verb, besides being the 1p singular dative bound pronoun, also has a directional allative sense, i.e. it points to the speaker and, by analogy, to the addressee or a third party. In 2002, N.J.C. Kouwenberg restated Landsberger’s insights in contemporary terms and offered a more detailed description of the functions of the -am/-nim/-m marker.Footnote 2 This study has become the reference work on the Old Babylonian (= OB) ventive. A counterpart of this study for Old Assyrian is Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2017: 641–51).
Further discussion followed three paths: 1) the ventive’s etymology and supposed West Semitic cognates (Kouwenberg Reference Kouwenberg2010: 240–4; Sjörs Reference Sjörs2023: 45–170); 2) the ventive encoding the motion towards third parties (Loesov Reference Loesov2006: 104–07; Koval and Loesov Reference Koval and Loesov2025); 3) the non-1p dative -am/-nim/-m marker on non-motion verbs (Loesov Reference Loesov2006: 107–31; Kouwenberg Reference Kouwenberg2017: 648–51; Sjörs Reference Sjörs2023: 23–44).Footnote 3 From these publications, only Loesov (Reference Loesov2006) deals with vernacular OB, but it is not a study with a clearly delineated corpus.Footnote 4
Considering the results achieved by Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002), the basic meaning of the ventive – motion towards the speaker and addressee – now appears transparent enough.Footnote 5 Nonetheless, in the OB sources, there is a non-negligible number of ventive tokens not reducible to this meaning. Neither Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002) nor Loesov (Reference Loesov2006) offers a comprehensive interpretation of this evidence. Therefore, in this article, we describe, using a single-writer corpus, the meanings of the ventive indicating direction towards a third party and the uses of the non-1p -am/-nim/-m marker with non-motion verbs.
1.2. The corpus
The language of OB letters is justly believed to be closer to the vernacular of their writers than the language of other OB genres. The published OB epistolary corpus comprises some 7,500 texts. They were written over approximately 400 years (roughly, 2000–1600 bc, middle chronology) in today’s Iraq and the adjacent regions of Syria, Anatolia and Iran. Some OB letter writers spoke OB as a second language. So, the language of OB letters is by no means expected to be uniform: it shows variation according to time and place of composition, and our reading experience confirms that.
These facts are crucial for an enquiry into the morphological semantics of the verb, which is admittedly a delicate matter. Its interpretation may be dependent on the specific time and place of composition, and even on the style of an individual writer. This is particularly true for deictic categories, to which the OB ventive – a means of spatial deixis – belongs. An additional advantage of using a large single-writer corpus is that we understand the background of the motions described in it better than in the case of most letters with no archival or historical context.
For this reason, we chose for our study the epistolary corpus of Samsi-Addu, the king of Upper Mesopotamia (late nineteenth century–1775 bc). It consists of 178 fully published letters, found in Mari and Šušarra (Tell Shemshara) and written mainly in the last decade of his reign.Footnote 6 Based on the number of texts, it is the second-largest single-writer epistolary corpus in OB, surpassed only by that of Hammurabi. However, it is no less voluminous than the latter in terms of word count. Additionally, the content and grammatical semantics of Samsi-Addu’s letters are definitely richer than those of Hammurabi’s letters.Footnote 7 In particular, Samsi-Addu’s letters describe numerous movements of the writer, his correspondents, messengers, troops, etc.Footnote 8 Another reason to choose this corpus is that Samsi-Addu was a native speaker of an OB variety, probably that of the Diyala valley.Footnote 9
1.3. The problem
We have checked all the ventives of our corpus (see the Supplementary material for the references to each token).Footnote 10 In it, 404 of 453 ventive tokens on motion verbs point to the locations of a speech act participant (hereafter SAP) at the coding and decoding time, in agreement with Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002: 204–16). Respectively, the vast majority of the 197 instances of motion verbs without the ventive describe motion towards third parties. The only observable deviation is the absence of the ventive on a non-negligible number of motion predicates encoding motion towards the addressee (see below section 2).
In the bulk of the article, we study the ventive tokens, the meanings of which were not sufficiently taken care of in Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002) and subsequent literature. In section 3, we address the ventives on motion verbs, pointing to landmarks other than the location of an SAP. Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002: 216) acknowledges this issue but does not propose a solution. This feature was also discussed in Loesov (Reference Loesov2006: 105–07), with several examples but without a comprehensive explanation.
In section 4, we describe the ventive on non-motion verbs. Most frequently it appears in non-final links of verb chains as an agreement morpheme when the last link is a motion verb (section 4.1).Footnote 11 In rare cases, the ventive also appears on non-motion verbs outside chains (section 4.2). In section 5, we describe the reflexive benefactive usage of the -am/-m/-nim marker. Finally, there are a few ventive tokens that we had to leave without a convincing explanation (section 6).
1.4. A definition of motion verbs and a list of these verbs in the corpus
According to Kouwenberg (Reference Kouwenberg2002: 202, 204), the ventive is normally hosted by “directional motion verbs”, but he does not define what a directional (in our terms, telic translocational) verb is, naming only a few of most frequent verbs as examples. We feel that the kind of OB verbs that can host the ventive needs a more rigorous definition.Footnote 12 A translocation event implies a change of position and includes at least the following two participants: a figure, i.e. the entity that experiences translocation (or theme, in some classifications); and a landmark, i.e. the entity relative to which the figure experiences translocation.
The landmark can be absolute or shifter/deictic. Absolute landmarks exist independently of a speech act, and are usually expressed by nominals, e.g. “from GN”, “to PN” or “across the river”. Shifter landmarks derive their sense from the individual speech interaction, e.g. “here”, “upwards”, “back”, since these and similar expressions shift (i.e. change) their value depending on the location of the respective speaker.
The translocation event profiles either the direction or path of the movement. direction expresses the figure’s motion towards or away from a shifter landmark. By contrast, path points to the figure’s location relative to the absolute landmark at a stretch of the itinerary, such as the starting point, a midpoint or the endpoint.
In certain cases, the translocation event can refer to region, i.e. an exact spatial position of the figure vis-à-vis a landmark: in, out (of), above, below, beside, from, etc.
Within the translocation event, the manner of motion can be also encoded, e.g. “to float”, “to crawl”, “to ride”, “to rush”, “to come together” when these verbs refer to translocation.
Verbs can include one or more of the above semes in their core lexical meaning and argument structure. For example, manner verbs tend to disregard direction and path as semantic constituents and express them lexically within the respective clause. Path verbs, by contrast, prototypically do not include the manner of motion in the core of their lexical semantics. It is understood that, whenever necessary, a given verb phrase can express the respective semes via adjuncts (e.g. “I rode into GN”).
Translocation verbs further subdivide into self-motion and caused motion verbs. In case of self-motion, the figure moves by itself. The caused translocation event includes yet another entity, the agent who makes the figure move, e.g. “to bring”. Finally, there are verbs whose lexical meaning implies the existence of a causer who makes the agent move along with the theme, i.e. “to send (something with someone)”.
Applying these parameters of translocation events to our corpus and OB at large, we obtain the following classification.Footnote 13
The most frequent and versatile self-motion verb is alākum “to go/come” (CAD A/1 300 mng. 1–2). In its telic readings, alākum always possesses a direction or an endpoint, while the starting point is not an obligatory element of its meaning. With the ventive, alākum is virtually synonymous to the English verb “to come”, i.e. it encodes motion towards an SAP. A telic alākum without the ventive is close to the English verb “to go (somewhere)”.
A number of verbs include path in their lexical meanings. In particular, verbs that profile the starting point of a translocation event are waṣûm “to go out, to leave” (CAD A/2 356 mng. 1), atlukum “to set off, to leave” (CAD A/1 300 mng. 5) and šūšurum “to depart” (AHw 255 mng. 9b). In its basic meaning, waṣûm describes motion from inside a landmark, i.e. it specifies a region, while atlukum and šūšurum do not indicate it. However, waṣûm can also mean “to depart”, sometimes losing the “out of” element. More lexically individuated verbs of this group, combining starting point with manner in their core senses, are nābutum “to flee” (CAD A/1 45 mng. 2), našûm “to leave camp” (CAN N/2 80 mng. 5b), paṭārum “to desert, to get dismissed” (CAD P 286 mng. 9) and rummûm “to retreat” (Charpin Reference Charpin and Charpin1988: 189).
Verbs whose lexical meaning includes an endpoint of a translocation event are kašādum “to arrive” (CAD K 271 mng. 1a)Footnote 14 and a rarer sanāqum id. (CAD S 133 mng. 1). The verbs more specialized for the manner but embedding the endpoint in their lexical meaning are naʔarrurum “to come to help” (CAD N/1 7) and perhaps raḫāṣum “to arrive? hastily” (AHw 942 mng. 3). The verb azāpum, which only appears once in our corpus, also refers to a kind of “arriving”.Footnote 15 The verbs erēbum “to enter” (CAD E 259 mng. 1) and ṭeḫûm “to come near, to approach” (CAD Ṭ 71 mng. 1) also belong in this group, additionally highlighting a region (“inside” and “near to” respectively). At last, etēqum “to pass through, to cross” (CAD E 384 mng. 2) and ebērum “to cross (water)” (CAD E 10 mng. 1) profile the midpoint rather than the starting point or the endpoint of motion event.
OB has no motion verbs whose lexical meaning indicates direction towards an SAP, in the way of the English “to come”: this kind of direction is expressed by the ventive morpheme. But OB possesses verbs that encode direction towards a shifter landmark different from the SAPs. These are elûm“to go/come up” (CAD E 114 mng. 1), muḫḫurum “to proceed upstream” (CAD M/1 50 mng. 7b), warādum“to go/come down” (CAD A/2 mng. 1a) and târum “to go/come back” (CAD T 250 mng. 1).
The syntactic structure of caused motion verbs depends on the following parameters: whether the referent of the syntactic object (the figure) is animate or inanimate, whether an agent moves along with the figure (accompanied motion) and whether there is a causer who sets the agent in motion.
In our corpus, the basic caused motion verbs having animate figures are ṭarādum “to send (about human beings)” (CAD Ṭ 50 mng. 1) and tarûm “to take/bring (about human beings)” (CAD T 245); the second verb expresses accompanied motion. The verb redûm “to conduct” (CAD R 226 mng. 1b) is, in our corpus, in all respects similar to tarûm, but may have an implication “under guard”. The basic caused motion verbs having inanimate figures are wabālum “to take/bring (about objects)” (CAD A/1 10 mng. 1) and šūbulum “to send (about objects)” (CAD A/1 10 mng. 9) which usually has a causer and a theme as surface participants, but sometimes an agent also appears as a syntactic participant, in a double accusative construction. The verb našûm in its caused motion sense means “to carry” (CAD N/2 80 mng. 2a). When referring to telic situations, it is a less frequent synonym of wabālum.
The syntactic (or surface) participants of the verb šapārum “to send a written message” (CAD Š/2 mng. 2) are in most cases causer and recipient, while the figure is, as a rule, absent from the surface of the clause. Rather than direct references to the figure (i.e. a term for a written message), šapārum takes dependents like kīam “thus” and annītum “this”, followed by direct speech. Sometimes verb phrases of šapārum can include a direct object referring to the agent whom the causer causes to deliver a message. The verb wuʔʔurum “to send instructions” (CAD A/1 318 mng. 2) has four surface participants, a causer, an agent, a recipient and a message as the figure.Footnote 16
In the corpus, there are two verbs that display in their surface syntax three participants – the causer, the agent and the theme or figure. These are šuššûm “to make take/bring (about objects)” (CAD N/1 80 mng. 7b), a causative derivation of našûm “to take/bring” and šūrûm “to make take/bring (about persons)” (CAD A/2 mng. 3), a suppletive causative derivation of tarûm “to take/bring (about persons)”.
Unlike the other caused motion verbs, the verbs šukšudum “to deliver” (CAD K 271 mng. 7a) and šullumum id. (CAD Š/1 208 mng. 8d)Footnote 17 include an endpoint in their core lexical meaning. The two can have both animate and inanimate objects. The verb šūrubum “to enter (trans.)” (CAD E 259 mng. 4) is close to šukšudum; in particular the object can be both animate and inanimate, but it specifies, at least originally, the region, i.e. the fact that the endpoint is situated inside a landmark. The verb šūṣûm “to lead/take out” (CAD A/2 356 mng. 6) describes caused motion from inside a landmark. In the few examples of our corpus, the object always happens to be animate, but in OB at large it can also be inanimate. The caused motion verb of our corpus that encodes a shifter direction are turrum “to return (trans.), to bring back” (CAD T 250 mng. 8), muḫḫurum “to tow upstream” (CAD M/1 50 mng. 7b), šuqelpûm “to transport down the river” (CAD N/2 172 mng 4), with both animate and inanimate figures. A caused-motion verb that profiles only manner is zabālum “to transport, to cart” (CAD Z 1).
2. The ventive lacking on verbs encoding motion towards the addressee
In our corpus, the addressee ventive is lacking in 12 cases, as against its 135 tokens. Consider the examples in which the second person goal is explicitly mentioned:
(1) Lāma tuppaka ikaššadam Meranu asêm ana ṣērīka aṭ-ṭà-ra-ad.
I sent to you Meranu the doctor before your letter reached me (ARM 26/1 268: 8–12).
(2) Šumma lā kīam-ma tuppī annûm ašrānum-ma ik-ta-ša-ad-ka…
If this is not so and it is there that this letter of mine caught up with you… (ShA 1 18: 18–20).Footnote 18
(3) Šumma tuppum annûm ina Tuttul lā ik-šu-ud-ka…
If this letter did not catch up with you in Tuttul… (ARM 1 91: 17′′ f.).
(4) 1 abarakku 5 nuḫatimmū ana ṣērīka in-na-bi-tu.
One housekeeper and five cooks fled to you (ARM 1 28: 5 f.).
(5) Enūtka ana ṣērīka ana Yaḫpila i-na-aš-šu-ú.
They will bring your utensils to you to Yahpila (ARM 1 35: 29 f.).
(6) … ana ṣērīka-ma li-tu-ru.
… let them come back to you (ARM 1 50: 16 f.).Footnote 19
In six other examples, explicit mentions of a second person goal are missing, but the contexts of the respective letters, in particular the second person presentative anumma,Footnote 20 strongly suggest that what is intended is indeed a second person goal.Footnote 21
By contrast, there is not a single token of the writer ventive missing where it is expected. This picture contradicts Kouwenberg’s (Reference Kouwenberg2002: 210) thesis according to which “the use of the ventive for motion towards the addressee(s) is just as regular as for motion towards the speaker”. Also, the addressee ventive favours an explicit support in text, such as second person dative pronouns or ana ṣēr- + second person possessive pronouns (119 out of 135 tokens).Footnote 22 Note as well the different treatment of the writer and the addressee when describing their motion to the home-base (section 3.2). In the world’s languages, cislocative markers may include or exclude the location of the interlocutor.Footnote 23 Where OB stands in this respect, and in particular what the origin is of the ventive pointing to the addressee, has been debated.Footnote 24 Our article does not consider etymological issues, but the above observations can be of relevance for this discussion.
3. The ventive not pointing to an SAP
3.1. The meeting point of the writer with the addressee or a third party
In OB, when the writer refers to his own translocation, by default the endpoint is not marked by the ventive. An example from our corpus is ana Andarig a-ka-aš-ša-ad-ma “(when) I arrive at Andarig” (ARM 1 52: 36 f.).Footnote 25 However, in many cases the 1p predicates of this kind do host a ventive. The reasons for this variation have never been explained.
As the following examples show, the ventive regularly appears in our corpus when a 1p translocation verb refers to a place which is thought of as a meeting point of the speaker and the addressee, or of one of them with non-SAPs.Footnote 26 We can define this kind of ventive as proleptic: if other people arrive at a certain place to meet the writer, and the respective predicates host ventives, the verb form describing the writer’s own translocation must host a ventive as well.
A group of letters found in Tell Shemshara describes Samsi-Addu’s plans to meet his interlocutor, a local king named Kuwari, in order to jointly attack Yašub-Addu, the ruler of Ahazum.Footnote 27
(7) Qadum ummānātim ana mātim šâti e-el-le-em. Atta ana panīya ta-la-kam-ma ittīka ṣuḫārê ta-ra-de-em.
I shall come up to that land with troops. You will come before me and bring servants with you (ShA 1 4: 24–29).
In (7), the writer is going to meet with the addressee in “that land”, so the ventives hosted on the three verbs all point to an assumed future location of both the writer and the addressee.
(8) U aššum mātīšu seḫê ša tašpuram itti ša Lullim nenmidā-ma māssu siḫê (…) [Ištu ūmū] iṭṭībū [itti] kabitti ṣābim e-le-em-ma ašâlšu.
And as for disturbing his country, about which you wrote me, join forces with the Lullean and disturb the country (…) [When the weather] improves, I shall come up with the main body of the army and call him to task (ShA 1 3: 17–21, 26–28).
(9) Ištu Nurrugum ittaṣbatu itti ṣābim-ma ana māt Aḫazim i-la-kam.
After Nurrugum has been seized, he will come to the land of Ahazum with the troops (ShA 1 7: 10–14).
(10) [itti] kabitti ummānātim [ašariš] e-le-em-ma ašâlšu.
I shall come up [there] with the main body of troops and call him to task (ShA 1 2: 33 f.).
In examples (8) and (9) there are no 2p or 3p translocation verbs, yet it follows from the contents of the letters that the addressee is supposed to attack the land of Yašub-Addu, while the writer intends to join the addressee in due time. The larger context of example (10) is lost, but the three letters address the same situation. Thus, the ventives on the verb form ellêm “I shall come up” also point to a future meeting point of the SAPs.
(11) Ana Qabra a-ka-aš-ša-dam-ma ašapparakkum-ma šībūt mātim ittīka te-re-de-em.
I shall arrive at Qabra and send you a message, and you will bring with you the elders of the country (ShA 1 18: 24–26).
Despite a phrasing similar to example (7), example (11) probably refers to a different event. The ventive hosted on akaššadam “I shall arrive” refers to the future translocations of the writer to Qabra, where he is going to meet the addressee.
In another group of letters, Samsi-Addu mentions his plans to come to the land of Zalmaqum to reinforce the troops of his general Išar-Lim who was already there:Footnote 28
(12) Inūma ana mātim šâti e-el-le-e-em […] kalāšu ina ištên ūmim ana ṣērīya ibbalakkat. (…) Issisam anaqqi-ma ina šanîm ūmim pan ṣābim aṣabbatam-ma ana māt Zalmaqim ú-še-eš₁₅-še-ra-am. Išar-Lim ina Šubat-Šamaš [līṣi(am)-ma] ṣābam maṣṣarti Šubat-Šamaš līzib-[ma] ullîš ṣābam kalāšu lilput-ma ana Ḫeššim ana panīya li-it-ta-al-kam u rēš našpartīya warkītim ina Ḫeššim-ma likīl. Inūma aštaprušum ṣābāšu ina Ḫeššim līzib u šū ana […] ana Mammagira li-il-li-kam-ma ṭēmkunu u ṭēm mātim gamram li-ib-lam.
When I come up to that land, the wholeFootnote 29 … will come over to my side in one day. (…) I shall make a sacrifice at the issisum ritual, and the next day I shall proceed to the land of Zalmaqum at the head of the army. Išar-Lim [must go out] from Šubat-Šamaš, leave behind a troop as a garrison of Šubat-Šamaš, and levy the whole troop there, and depart to Heššum towards me, and it is in Heššum that he must wait for my further message. As soon as I have messaged him, he must leave his troop in Heššum, and as for himself, he must come to […] Mammagira and bring me a report from you and a full report about the country (ARM 1 10: 7′ f., 13′–23′).
The ventives on most verbs in example (12) point to the writer’s assumed future whereabouts, i.e. the land of Zalmaqum in general and a local town Mammagira in particular. The ventive on littalkam “he must depart” refers to Išar-Lim’s expected departure towards Heššum, an intermediate point on his route to Mammagira.
(13) Anāku qadum gamarti ṣābim [šâti] ana rēš eqlim ašariš a-ka-aš-ša-dam (…) U Išar-Lim [itti ṣābim] šâti ana Ḫeššim il-la-kam-ma ṣābum ša itti Išar-Lim itti ṣābim warkîm innemmid-ma ša epēšim ippeš u anāku warkānum a-al-la-kam.
As for me, I shall arrive at my destination there with the whole of [this] army (…) Also, Išar-Lim will come to Heššum [with this troop], and the troop which is with Išar-Lim will join the troop coming next and will do what must be done, and I myself shall come later (ARM 1 22: 14 f., 26–32).
(14) Pan ṣābim kalīšu aṣabbatam-ma ina libbi warḫim annîm qadum ummānātim ana rēš eqlīya ašariš a-ka-aš-ša-dam.
At the head of the whole army, within this month, I shall arrive at my destination there with the troops (ARM 1 5: 39–43).
Examples (13) and (14) refer to the same state of affairs as example (12). The ventives on akaššadam “I shall arrive” and allakam “I shall come” point to Zalmaqum, where Samsi-Addu is going to come. The ventive on illakam “he will come” in example (13) refers to Išar-Lim’s future journey to Heššum, an intermediate point on his route to Mammagira, as it follows from example (12).
(15) Kīma ša ṣabêm uwaʔʔerakkum qadum ṣābim ša ittīka ana Ša-Panazim at-la-kam-ma ina Ša-Panazim [šib] (…) [Inūma] ana Ša-Panazim tu-uš-te-še-ra-am ūm ta-na-aš-šu-ú šina qallūtim ana ṣēr Išme-Dagan šu-up-ra-am. Ṣābam ana pūḫat ṣāb Ḫadun-Lumu Sitri-Addu u ṣāb Eliliš annānum liṭrudakkum-ma ṣābam šâti ana ṣērīšu ṭú-ur-dam-ma…
As I instructed you about warmaking, set off to Ša-Panazim with the troop that is with you and [stay] in Ša-Panazim. [When] you have departed to Ša-Panazim, the very day you move out, send two couriers to Išme-Dagan. May he dispatch from there to you a troop to replace the troop of Hadun-Lumu, Sitri-Addu, and Eliliš, and you dispatch to him that troop… (ARM 2 10: 7–10, 2′–9′).
(16) U kīma ina tuppīya panîm ašpurakkum ana Šuda iši-ma ṣidītam ša ištên warḫim ṣābam šumḫir. Tukkil-ma ištên ūmam šina ūmī ina Šuda ṣābum linūḫ-ma ana Ša-Panazim i-še-em-ma ina Ša-Panazim šib. (…) Inūma ana Ša-Panazim ta-at-ta-še-e-em šina qallūtim ana ṣēr aḫīka šu-up-ra-am-[ma] pūḫat ṣāb Ḫadun-Lumu Sitri-Addu u ṣāb Eliliš liṭrudakkum. Ištu ṣābum šū iktašdakkum ṣābam šâti ana ṣēr aḫīka ṭú-ur-dam.
And, as I wrote you in a previous letter of mine,Footnote 30 move out to Šuda and supply the troop with one-month travel provisions. Make sure the troop rests one day or two days in Šuda, then move out to Ša-Panazim and stay in Ša-Panazim. After you have moved out to Ša-Panazim, send two couriers to your brother so that he dispatches to you the replacement of the troops of Hadun-Lumu, Sitri-Addu and Eliliš. After that troop has reached you, dispatch these troops to your brother (ARM 1 39: 8–12, 16–22).
In examples (15) and (16), Samsi-Addu pens the same message to his son Yasmah-Addu twice. The ventive on the verb phrases encoding the motion of the addressee to Ša-Panazim most likely points to his future meeting-point with the writer. Note that in (15) the verb form tanaššû also encodes motion towards Ša-Panazim, but this time, unlike (14), for some reason it hosts no ventive. In both letters, Samsi-Addu also employs his ventives to refer to the location of the addressee’s brother Išme-Dagan (šupram “send” and ṭurdam “dispatch” in both texts).Footnote 31
(17) Ištu ṭēm Turukkî ittenpešu pan ummānātim aṣabbat-ma ana māt Zalmaqim e-el-le-em.
After the matter of Turukkeans has been done with, I shall come up to the land of Zalmaqum at the head of the troops (ARM 1 53+: 26–30).
Since the message of example (17) probably refers to the same real-life situation as in examples (8)–(13), the ventive on ellêm must also point to the future meeting point of Samsi-Addu with his troops.
While all the above passages describe the writer’s future translocations, in one text the ventive is hosted on a 1p verb in the Perfect, aktašdam“I have arrived”, referring to the writer’s past:
(18) Ṣābum ša itti Išme-Dagan ik-ta-aš-dam. Ūm tuppī annêm ušābilakkum ṣābum ša itti Išme-Dagan kalūšu u ṣābum Išnukkûm Zaʔibam i-te-bi-r[u-nim ?]. U anāku ana Kaštappim ak-ta-áš-dam. Ūm tuppī annêm tešemmû ina šalšim ūmim ana Kaštappim ana ṣērīya 1 līm ṣābūka li-ri-dam-ma 1 rab amurrīka itti ṣābim li-li-kam.
The troop that is with Išme-Dagan has arrived. The day I sent you this letter of mine the troop that is with Išme-Dagan and the Ešnunnean troop have crossed the Zab. I also have arrived at Kaštappum. The day you will read this letter of mine, on the third day, one thousand of your men must come down to me to Kaštappum. One of your generals must come here with the troop (ShA 1 9: 4–22).
Samsi-Addu sends this letter from Kaštappum, a small town admittedly on the Great Zab. He had arrived at this town shortly before writing this letter, and Kaštappum becomes a gathering point for future warfare for both the writer and all other participants to the campaign.
3.2. The home base of the writer
The ventive on the 1p verbs also points to the writer’s home base, i.e. the location with which the speaker associates himself, wherever he could be at the speech time.Footnote 32 This happens when Samsi-Addu speaks of coming back to Šubat-Enlil, his capital, or to Assur, the religious centre of his kingdom:
(19) Waraḫ Tammuz gamer[-ma] ina ūmi damqim ištu Ninuwa ana Šubat-Enlil ak-šu-dam.
The month of Tammuz being over, on an auspicious day, I arrived at Šubat-Enlil from Nineveh (ARM 1 10: 9′ f.).
(20) Inanna ana Šubat-Enlil ak-šu-dam-[ma] tuppī annīam ušābilakkum.
Now then, I arrived at Šubat-Enlil and sent you this letter of mine (ARM 4 2: 8–11).
(21) Kīma ummānātu ina Qabra ipḫurā Išme-Dagan itti ummānātim ana māt Aḫazim aṭrud u anāku ana Ālim at-ta-al-kam.
After the armies gathered in Qabra, I sent Išme-Dagan with the armies to the land of Ahazum, while I myself set off to the City (ARM 1 69+: 5–8).
“The City” in example (21) is Assur.Footnote 33 Note, however, that when describing his other journey to “the City”, Samsi-Addu did not use the ventive (perhaps betraying hesitation about Assur’s “homely” status):
(22) Adi ešrê warḫim annîm ina Akkade wašbāku. Warkānum ana Ālim ú-ma-aḫ-ḫa-ar
I am staying in Akkade until the 20th of this month. Then I shall proceed upstream to the City (ARM 1 36: 6–7).
Unlike the writer’s home base, that of the addressee is not obligatorily marked by the ventive, as in the following two texts.Footnote 34 The addressees of these letters are Kuwari, the king of Šušarra, and Yasmah-Addu, who move to their respective capitals, Šušarra and Mari:
(23) Umma anāku-ma, “Šumma Šikšabbum ittaṣbat ana Arrapḫim ana panīya alkam. Šumma Šikšabbum lā iṣṣabit ṣābam birtam Footnote 35 ana itât Šikšabbim līrub-ma, atta kīma panīka-ma ana Šušarra a-lik”. (…) Anumma Šikšabbum ittaṣbat-ma ana māt Šušarra ta-at-ta-la-ak.
I told you as follows, “If Šikšabbum has been taken, come to Arrapha towards me. If Šikšabbum has not been taken, let a garrison enter the area of Šikšabbum, and as for you, go to Šušarra just as you planned”. (…) Now then, Šikšabbum has been taken, still you have gone to the land of Šušarra (ShA 1 12: 6–12, 17 f.).
(24) Ana Mari a-li-ik.
Go to Mari (ARM 2 6: 16).
In the following example, the ventive does most likely point to the addressee’s home base:
(25) “Inanna ina Qattunan uššab-ma adi bēlī ana Šubat-Enlil i-ka-aš-ša-da-am ina Qattunan rēš bēlīya ukāl”. Annītam tašpuram.
“Now I shall stay in Qattunan and, until my lord arrives at Šubat-Enlil, I shall look forward to my lord’s (order) in Qattunan”. That is what you have written to me (ARM 1 37: 12–18).
Bēlī “my lord” refers to Samsi-Addu, whom his son Yasmah-Addu politely styles bēlī in a letter from which Samsi-Addu cites this sentence. Šubat-Enlil is Samsi-Addu’s home base, and he possibly rephrases his son’s message from his own personal vantage point.
3.3. The home country of the SAPs
The ventive is regularly used to encode motion towards what both the speaker and the addressee perceive as their own territory, from outside this territory.Footnote 36 In this case, the landmark towards which this type of ventive points is not a location of any of the SAPs. Thus, in example (26) below, the ventive points to the city of Ṣuprum. None of the SAPs stays in it or, as far as their conversation goes, plans to visit it. Nevertheless, the ventive encodes motion from abroad (the kingdom of Qatna) to Ṣuprum, located in the vicinity of Mari:
(26) Erēnum, šurmēnum u asum ša ištu Qatanim ub-lu-nim ina Ṣuprim šakin.
Cedar, cypress and myrtle that were brought from Qatna, are stored in Ṣuprum (ARM 1 7: 4–6).Footnote 37
The “bank of the Euphrates” mentioned in the following example is situated within Yasmah-Addu’s kingdom, while the agents of the verb phrase are enemy troops:
(27) Kīma qātum urtammašunūšim ana aḫ Purattim ur-ra-du-nim.
As soon as the grip is loosened on them, they will go down to the bank of the Euphrates (ARM 1 83: 33–35).
The same is true for the libbi mātim region in example (28) below, an expression that refers to the Habur Triangle, and, more generally, to the central area of Samsi-Addu’s kingdom.Footnote 38
(28) U wāšib ālim šūṣi[(am)-ma] annîš ana libbi mātim tu-pí-ra-aš-šu-nu-ti.
Also, bring out the inhabitants [and] deport them here to the Inland (ARM 1 39: 5′ f.).
In the following example, the ventive does not point to the SAPs, Samsi-Addu and the king of Qatna, but rather to Mari, the domain of Yasmah-Addu, who is going to marry the girl styled as “my daughter-in-law” in the text:
(29) Kīma kallatī ḫadîš ina ḫarrānim šalimtim ta-aṭ-ru-da-aš-ši…
(I learned) that you sent here my daughter-in-law with joy along a safe way … (ARM 1 24+: 11 f.).
On the surface of example (30) cited below, the ventive points to “their country”, but in fact what is meant is the kingdom of Samsi-Addu, of which “their country” is a part:
(30) Tubbabšunūti-ma aḫḫūšunu Rabbāyū ša ina ebertim ina māt Yamḫad wašbū išemmû-ma imarrassunūšim-ma ana mātīšunu ul i-tu-úr-ru-nim.
You will conduct a census on them, and their brothers, the Rabbeans, who reside on the other bank in the land of Yamhad, will learn of this, and this will displease them, so they will not return to their country (ARM 1 6: 9–12).
In the following text, Samsi-Addu also suggests that the pastoralists move to the territory under his control (ana libbi mātim), while also rhetorically referring to it as “your (-kunu) land”:
(31) Ana libbi mātim at-la-ka-nim. (…) [Šumma] šaḫāṭam lā teleʔʔê attunu-ma […-n]u ina kišādīkunu ḫi-de-nim-ma [x-x]-x-e-ma ana libbi mātīkunu [al]-ka-nim. Šumma lā kīam-ma ṣēnī lā tašaḫḫiṭā-ma u attunu lā te-bi-ra-nim.
Set off to the Inland! (…) [If] you cannot make a raid, you yourselves […] …Footnote 39 in/from your river bank and […] and come to your land! Or else, do not raid for sheep and you yourselves do not cross over (ARM 1 91: 16′ f., 7′′–11′′).
The motion of troops towards their home country is often rendered by the verb paṭārum “to withdraw, to be dismissed” with the ventive:
(32) U ṣābum ša maḫar Išme-Dagan ušbu ip-ta-aṭ-ra-am. Ana bītātīšunu ana ṣidītīšu kunnim wuššur.
Also, the troop that stayed with Išme-Dagan has been dismissed. It has been released to their homes, to ensure their subsistence (ARM 2 8: 7–10).
(33) Ina ṣābim ša maḫar Samidaḫim wašbu ša ištu Qaṭanim i-pa-ṭà-ru-nim Samidaḫum sugāgī ša […] išappar-ma sugāgū pāṭerī ukassû-ma ana ṣēr Samidaḫim iṭarradūšunūti. Kīma ukassûšunūti-ma ana ṣēr Samidaḫim utarrūšunūti īmurū-ma ana libbi mātim ul i-tu-úr-ru-nim. (…) Šipṭam kīam idin ummami, “Ṣābum kalūšu ša ina Qaṭanim i-pa-aṭ-ṭà-ra-am pāṭerī ša ištu Qaṭanim i-pa-aṭ-ṭà-ra-am lā tukassâ”.
From among the troops that stay with Samidahum, those who are being dismissed from Qatna, Samidahum sends around chiefs of […] so that the chiefs detain the dismissed persons and send them back to Samidahum. They saw that they were detaining them and sending them back to Samidahum, so they are not going back to the Inland. Give the following directive: “All the troops that are in Qatna will get dismissed, do not detain the dismissed persons who get dismissed from Qatna” (ARM 1 13: 5–18, 24–28).
(34) Ṣābum ana libbi mātim ip-ta-aṭ-ra-am.
The troop has been dismissed to the Inland (ARM 1 5: 36).
(35) Ummānātum šalmā. Ummānātum ip-ta-aṭ-ra-nim.
The armies are in order. The armies have been dismissed. (ARM 1 4: 18 f.).
3.4. The reference group of the SAPs
In examples (15) and (16) quoted in section 3.1, the two imperatives referring to the motion of Yasmah-Addu to his brother Išme-Dagan host ventives. In our corpus, there is a third example of the ventive pointing to Išme-Dagan:
(36) Tuppaka ša ana ṣēr Išme-Dagan tu-ša-bi-lam Išme-Dagan ana ṣērīya ušābilam-ma ešmešu.
Your letter that you sent to Išme-Dagan, Išme-Dagan sent it to me and I had it read (ShA 1 6: 4–10).
One can explain these particular non-SAP ventives following the lead of Oshima (Reference Oshima2006: 290), who suggests that the cislocative markers (e.g. the verb “to come”) can point to what he calls “a contextually salient set of individuals”. In our case, this “set of individuals” can be described as “the speaker’s us”, which here includes the writer’s son and the addressee’s brother.
4. The ventive and associated motion
The recently introduced linguistic category of “associated motion” refers to markers that transform a non-motion situation into a translocational motion event.Footnote 40 The ventive as a marker of associated motion towards an SAP has two varieties – the agreement ventive (section 4.1) and the free-standing ventive (section 4.2).
4.1. The agreement ventive
In verb chains culminating in a ventive motion verb, the ventive is sometimes copied on non-final links of the respective verb chain.Footnote 41 It is understood that these non-final links contain non-motion verbs, while chain-final motion verbs have or lack the ventive according to the rules we exposed above. Only those verb chains whose arguments become figures in the motion event are prone to demonstrate ventive agreement. For example, in the following text none of the participants of the verb phrase headed by liqe “take (the bull)!” is the figure in the motion event of šupram “send a message”, and thus no ventive agreement is expected:
(37) Inanna alpam šâti li-qé-e-ma ana Mubalsaga šu-up-ra-am-ma alpam kīma alpim ina ālim liddinšum.
Now take that bull and send a message to Mubalsaga here so he gives him a similar bull in the city (ARM 1 86: 11–18).
Our corpus contains 33 verbs demonstrating ventive agreement, as defined above. Twenty-five of them occur in verbal chains headed by caused motion verbs in which the figure of the ventive head verb is a participant in the preceding clauses, as in the following examples:
(38) Tuša ḫurrum ša kaspim ina ḫalṣīšu ibašši-ma kaspam i-le-qé-a-am-ma ub-ba-lam. Ul ina eyêm šamnim u karānim kaspam šâti i-ka-ṣa-ra-am-ma ub-ba-lam?
As if there were a silver mine in his province that he takes silver (from) and brings (it) to me! Is it not from grain, oil, and wine that he collects this silver and brings (it) to me? (ARM 1 73: 19–23).
(39) Anumma meḫer tuppim ša ana Išḫi-Addu ušaṭṭeru ina tuppīya annîm ú-ša-aṭ-ṭe₄-ra-am-ma uš-ta-bi-la-kum.
Herewith, in this letter of mine, I have a copy made of the letter that I wrote to Išhi-Addu, and I have sent it to you (ARM 1 24+: 3–5).
(40) Tuppī annêm ina šemêm awīlê šunūti ku-sa-šu-nu-ti-ma maṣṣārīšunu du-un-ni-na-am-ma ana ṣērīya ana Šubat-Enlil li-ir-du-ni-iš-šu-nu-ti.
As soon as you listen to this letter of mine, bind up these men, give them strong guards, and let them bring them to me to Šubat-Enlil (FM 9 73: 15–22).
Note that in example (40), the figure of the head verb is the patient in the first clause and it is referred back by an adnominal possessive pronoun in the second clause.
(41) 52 manê 10 šiqil kaspam ana qāt Baqqanim pí-iq-dam u mušallimī ana kaspim šâti šu-uk-nam-ma ana ṣērīya li-ib-lam.
Entrust 52 minas 10 shekels of silver to Baqqanum, also appoint escorts for this silver, so that he brings it to me (ARM 1 46: 22–27).
In example (41), the first and third verb forms possess the same direct object kaspum “silver” (the figure of the head verb), while it is the indirect object of the second verb. Note the absence of the postpositive -ma on piqdam, demonstrating that it is not required for the ventive agreement.Footnote 42
In examples (37)–(41) and a number of similar cases, the ventive agreement must be prompted by a participant shared by various clauses that are thought to constitute one translocation event, regardless of the semantic or syntactic role of the respective constituent.Footnote 43 However, as it turns out, very similar verb chains of our corpus do not display the ventive agreement. In particular, the following example is almost identical in its structure to example (40), yet the ventive is missing:
(42) Ku-su-šu-nu-ti-ma ana ṣērīya šu-re-eš-šu-nu-ti.
Bind them up and direct them to me (FM 9 57: 11 f.).
Another example contains a longer chain (as in, for example, (41) above), in which the ventive is missing on the first link and present on the second one:
(43) Awīlê šunūti li-iṣ-ba-as-sú-nu-ti-ma ana qātīšu pí-iq-dam-ma ana ṣērīya li-ir-du-ni-iš-šu-nu-ti-ma išariš līpulūšunūti.
These men, let him seize them, and entrust (them) to him, so that they bring them to me, and let them treat them justly (ARM 4 1: 23–26).
These and a few other examples are syntactically no different from examples (38)–(41); nonetheless, the non-final verb phrases in them do not host the ventive.Footnote 44
Less frequently, ventive agreement occurs in verb chains having a self-motion verb in the final link. Of the nine tokens, five have the compound verb pan- ṣabātum “to go at the head” in hendiadys: see examples (12) and (14) above.Footnote 45 At the same time, there is one token of the same construction in which pan- ṣabātum has no ventive, cited above as example (17). The remaining four tokens are as follows:
(44) Ištu Ḫasam ana Šuda ūlū-ma ana Mammagira li-iṣ-ba-tu-nim-ma li-it-ta-al-ku-nim.
From Ḫasam, let them take (the route?) to Šuda or to Mammagira and set out to me (ARM 1 97: 20–23).
(45) La i-ta-ra-am-ma Footnote 46 ana ṣērīya la i-l [a-kam].
He must not come to me again (ShA 1 16: 6).
(46) Ṣāb mātim kalīša ug-dam-ma-ra-am-ma ina ūmim 15 waraḫ Tīrim ana ṣērīka i-ka-aš-ša-dam.
The troop of the whole country will be gathered and arrive to you on the 15th of month XII (ARM 2 8: 15–18).
(47) Kirisakkīka ittīka gu-um-me-ra-am-ma ana Šubat-Enlil ana ṣērīya al-kam.
Gather your courtiers along with you and come to me to Šubat-Enlil (ARM 4 2: 16–19).
The understanding of example (44) is hampered by the unparalleled usage of ṣabātum “to seize”, perhaps in another hendiadys construction, with a meaning such as “passing via”. In example (45), the left link contains another phasal verb used in hendiadys, târum “to do again” (CAD T 250 mng. 5). It happens to have a ventive, but in the OB corpus as a whole the ventive in this construction can be present or missing without a clear distribution.Footnote 47 In examples (46)–(47), it is understood that the participants of the non-final clauses, not explicitly mentioned in the head clauses, will accompany the translocation. In this way, these tokens resemble the above examples with caused motion verbs in final links. However, there are two cases which are structurally very similar to example (48) yet have no ventive agreement:
(48) Šina ṣuḫārūka qallūtim Footnote 48 tuppātīka li-il-qú-ma mušītam-ma libbi Ḫasam li-ir-hi-ṣú-nim.
Two of your servants, fast couriers, must take your letters and come here quickly by night via Ḫasam (ARM 1 97: 16–19).
(49) Ṣuḫārê agālī u amassu ša Itur-Asdu bārîm and qāt ṣuḫārīšu pí-qí-id-ma li-it-ta-al-kam.
Entrust the servants, a.-equids and the female servant of Itur-Addu the diviner to his servant, so that he sets out to me (ARM 26/1 130: 6–12).
Finally, the following chain, also with no agreement ventive, has a different participant structure: the left link has a direct object, the exponent of which is not involved in the translocation. Since this is the only example of the kind in our corpus, we cannot say if this circumstance is relevant. Note that the two verb phrases share the subject (who becomes the figure in the final link). Nonetheless the ventive agreement fails to take place:
(50) 5 awīlû annûtum gāyašunu i-zi-bu-ma ana ṣērīya it-ta-al-ku-nim.
These five men have left their clan and departed to me (ARM 4 1: 14–17).
Thus, the ventive agreement is most likely to occur within the verb chains with caused motion final links (25 vs. 6). Hendiadys constructions with self-motion heads display a similar proportion (6 vs. 1). Other verb chains with self-motion heads more often have no ventive in the left link (2 vs. 3). However, the data is meagre and needs to be tested on a larger corpus to see whether this difference is meaningful. In all cases, the constructions with and without the agreement ventives look synonymous.
4.2. The free-standing associated motion ventive
Like other languages, OB can use non-motion verbs to express translocation, with the respective goals encoded either by lative prepositional phrases or the ventive, in the case of direction towards an SAP.Footnote 49 Some of these uses undergo lexicalization and produce new motion verbs, such as, for example, paṭārum “to desert” < “to loosen” (see section 1.4), not to mention numerous motion verbs which have non-motion verbs as their more distant etymons. Other verbs only have ad hoc motion uses, typically not reflected in dictionaries (though, with lexicalization, there is often no iron curtain between an occasionalism and an established meaning). A salient group among them is represented by “negative motion” verbs, which can host the ventive to express the idea of not moving to an SAP.Footnote 50 In our corpus, we have only one token of the allative ventive on such a verb. In the following example, the verb parāsum “to cut off, to sever” (CAD P 165) acquires the meaning “to fail to come” to the speaker:
(51) Tuppātūka ip-ru-sa-nim.
Your messages stopped (coming) my way (ARM 1 97: 12 f.).
In a way, the compound verb pān- šakānum “to intend” (CAD Š/2 116 mng. 5a s.v. panu d) is close to the “negative motion” group: there is no translocation, only an intention thereof. It appears once with a ventive in our corpus:
(52) Tuppī annīam ina šemêm ana Šubat-Enlil pan ḫarrānīka šu-uk- [nam].
As soon as you have listened to this letter of mine, start planning your journey here to Šubat-Enlil (ARM 4 2: 20–24).
Note, however, that “negative motion” verbs can express the (non)-translocation towards an SAP and still have no ventive:
(53) Ṣuḫārka-ma ina alākim ú-uḫ-ḫi-ir ina ūmim 25 ana ṣērīya ikšudam.
It was your servant who was late in coming: he reached me on the 25th (ShA 1 18: 33 f.).Footnote 51
Another group of non-motion verbs easily acquiring translocational meanings are verbs of taking, comparable to the English “to take (somewhere)”. The most frequent verb used in this way is leqûm “to take” (CAD L 131).Footnote 52 Our corpus also contains a rare example of ṣabātum “to seize, take” (CAD Ṣ 5), used without ventive, but with a lative prepositional phrase ana GN (ARM 1 35: 19).
Other, heterogenous verbs in our corpus that can acquire occasional motion meanings are: nasāḫum “to transfer (to a different location, about personnel)” (CAD N/2 1 mng. 5), paḫārum “to gather (intr., to a certain location)” (CAD P 23 mng. 1), puḫḫurum “to gather (trans., to a certain location)” (CAD P 21 mng. 4) and duppurum “to expel” (CAD D 186 mng. 2a).Footnote 53
5. Indirect reflexive
As is well-known, the -am/-m/-nim marker hosted on transitive verbs sometimes acquires an indirect reflexive reading with reference to any grammatical person.Footnote 54 This usage is rare in OB. Thus, our corpus has only four examples of the kind. Whether this usage derives from the allative or dative meaning of the -am/-m/-nim marker remains to be established.Footnote 55 Semantically, this marker is a dative pronoun coreferential with the subject of the respective verb phrase. Note in particular that in the following verb phrases the suffixed object pronouns -nikkum “for you” and -am “for myself” fill the same participant slot:
(54) “Atta bāʔerī annikīam siniq [u] ana Mari šupur-ma bāʔerī ša Mari lisniqūnikkum. Anāku bāʔerī ša Šubat-Enlil u bāʔerī ša Tuttul lu-us ₆-ni-qa-am”. Annītam uwaʔʔer. Anāku bāʔerī ša Šubat-Enlil [u] Tuttul [ás]-ni-qa-am.
“As for you, inspect b.-soldiers there [and] write to Mari so that they inspect b.-soldiers for you. As for me, I would inspect for myself b.-soldiers of Šubat-Enlil and Tuttul”. This I ordered. I did inspect for myself b.-soldiers of Šubat-Enlil and Tuttul (ARM 1 31: 7–17).
In the following two texts, the -am morpheme on the verb leqûm “to take” is used as the second- and third-person indirect reflexive. As it follows from the letters’ contents, this -am is neither the ventive nor the 1p dative pronoun. This usage is a development of the 1p reflexive reading of this morpheme, exemplified in example (54) above.
(55) Mārī Zalmaqim ša ana lišānim ilteneqqûnikkum ana rēšūtim lā te-le-qé-em.
Don’t take for yourself as slaves the inhabitants of Zalmaqum whom they keep bringing to you as informers (ARM 1 29: 5–7).Footnote 56
(56) [1 meat] ṣābum mārū mātim. Ṣidīt 15 ūmī li-il-qé-em.
There is a troop of [one hundred (soldiers)], they are locals. It must take for itself the travel provisions for 15 days (ARM 1 43: 7 f.).
6. Varia
In a few cases, the appearance of the ventive is difficult to explain, in particular because we do not possess all the data that were once available to the SAPs.
(57) Ana qablīt nawêm al-kam. Laʔim u sugāgī Footnote 57 ša Aḫ Purattim ittīka li-il-li-ku-nim.
Come into the inner part of the pasture land. La’um and the chiefs of the Bank of the Euphrates must come with you (ARM 4 7+: 10–12).
Note that in l.7 of the same letter the writer observes, u annānum anāku ubbab “and I myself shall conduct the census here”, which means that the writer is not in the qablīt nawêm. Thus, these ventive tokens cannot be explained within the framework created in this study.
(58) Ištu Mari lā tu-uṣ-ṣé-em.
Do not leave Mari (ARM 1 87: 11 f.).
Speculatively, the ventive might point in the direction of the speaker, because the letter further mentions (ll. 7′ f.) an encounter between him and the addressee scheduled for a later date. However, the two parts of the letter are separated by a large lacuna, and it is not clear that they speak about the same situation.Footnote 58
(59) Ūm kispim ana Terqa a-ka-aš-ša-dam.
I shall arrive at Terqa the day of the funerary offering (ARM 1 65: 5–7).
This message is all that appears in the the letter. One can make a guess that Samsi-Addu and his son Yasmah-Addu were going to meet in Terqa.
(60) Ina alākīšunu pagaršunu šarāqum i-ša-ar-ri-qú-nim-ma [ū] ina qablīt gerri imaššaʔūšunūti
On their way, either they themselves might be kidnapped from me, or they might be robbed in the middle of the road (ShA 1 15: 20–23).
The -nim morpheme of išarriqūnim was not translated in the edition. We suggest that it refers to the writer, who is supposed to receive the troops in question, as a 1p dative pronoun encoding a participant of the verb šarāqum, the one from whom something is stolen. Consider a similar example from outside our corpus: Rēšī u imērī ana mīnim ta-aš-ri-qa-am? “Why did you steal the slaves and the donkeys from me?” (ARM 14 51: 12 f.).Footnote 59
(61) Tuppam ša Yašub-El ana Laʔim ú-ša-bi-lam u Laʔum ana ṣērīka ušābilam tušābilam-ma ešme. (…) Ana Yašub-El dāṣātim-ma idbubū-ma šū ana Laʔim iš-pu-ur.
I listened to the letter that Yašub-El send to La’um, La’um sent to you and you sent to me. (…) It was lies that they told to Yašub-El, and he wrote (this) to La’um (ARM 1 47: 5–8, 13–15).
We believe that the ventive in the first clause is an error, influenced by another (and justified) token of ušābilam in the next clause. This is confirmed by the fact that the same situation is described later in the text, this time without the ventive.Footnote 60
7. Conclusions
We have parsed all the ventive tokens of our corpus in terms of their grammatical meanings. As it turns out:
1) Out of 453 ventive tokens on motion verbs, 404 are regular SAP ventives. They point either to the location of the respective speaker or the addressee at the coding time. Heuristically, this means that students of the OB epistolary corpus must do their best to interpret a given ventive token as belonging to this majority group.
2) The addressee ventive is slightly less stringently used than the speaker ventive. It is lacking in 12 cases versus 135 in which it is present.
3) We have singled out the following varieties of ventives that do not point to the location of an SAP:
a. The ventive points to a meeting point of an SAP with non-participants to the speech act. In all cases but one this meeting is situated in the writer’s future, which is expected since we are dealing with correspondence rather than a chronicle.
b. The ventive points to the “home base” of the writer, i.e. the location with which the speaker associates himself.
c. The ventive points to the home country of the SAPs rather than to the exact location of either of them.
d. The ventive points to a non-SAP participant whom the speaker includes into his reference group (e.g. a member of the family).
4) The ventive on non-motion verbs serves to encode what is called “associated motion” in linguistics, i.e. it adds a translocational seme to the lexical meaning of the respective non-motion verb. This usage appears in two varieties: the agreement ventive on non-final links of verbal chains and free-standing ventive on non-motion verbs. For the agreement ventive, we have shown that it is present in c. 80 per cent of the cases in which a) the final link of the chain is a caused-motion verb, or b) the final link of the chain is a self-motion verb while the non-final link represents hendiadys. With other self-motion final links, the agreement ventive is used in about the half of the cases. The reasons for the presence of absence of the agreement ventive in a given chain remain unclear.
5) The am/-m/-nim morpheme can also serve as an indirect reflexive marker. This usage is rare: there are only four tokens in our corpus. We believe that semantically this feature is related to dative rather than allative.
6) We have found only five tokens of this morpheme which do not yield to one of the above interpretations.
Abbreviations
AbBAltbabylonische Briefe in Umschrift und Übersetzung
AHwvon Soden, W. Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. Wiesbaden, 1965‒1981
ARMArchives royales de Mari
CADThe Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute, the University of Chicago
CUSASCornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology
FMFlorilegium Marianum
LAPOLittératures anciennes du Proche-Orient
PIHANSPublications de l’Institut historique et archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul
ShAThe Shemshara Archives
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X25100670.
Acknowledgements
This article is an output of the research project “Semitic lexicography in synchrony and diachrony”, part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University), Laboratory for Middle Eastern and North African Languages and Cultures. Our thanks go to Dr Nele Ziegler for important corrections on a first draft of this manuscript.
