L1.7: The Locative-Adverbiative
L1.7: The Locative-Adverbiative#
The adverbial -um as the adverbial -iš represents an old case form, which in Old Akkadian or Old Assyrian was still in use but in the Old Babylonian it is not productive anymore.
The ending -um has a locative function, thus it corresponds to the genitive preceded by the preposition ana or ina.
It can be used independently without a preposition:
Example
ištēn manaʾum “in/for one mina”.
Or with the preposition ina or ana
Example
ina bītum “In the house”.
When it is used with another noun, the second is in genitive:
Example
qerbum Babili “In the middle of Babylon”.
ina libbu mātim “inside the land”. In this case libbu without the final -m.
It can also be used with suffixes. In this case the -m assimilates before the suffix.
When it is used with another noun the second is in genitive:
Example
šaptukki “on your lip” (= ina šaptīki).
qerbuššu “in its midst” (= ina qerbīšu).
*šepūʾa “at my foot”.
Sometimes it is preceded by the morpheme -ān:
Example
šaplānum “underneath” (from šaplum “underside”).
elēnum “above, beyond” (from ēlûm “uper”).
The use of the locative-adverbial ending is restricted to a few frozen adverbial forms, such as libbum.