Editing Sumerian language (section)

=== Stress ===
Sumerian [[stress (linguistics)|stress]] is usually presumed to have been dynamic, since it seems to have caused vowel elisions on many occasions. Opinions vary on its placement. As argued by Bram Jagersma<ref name=":21" /> and confirmed by other scholars,<ref>Zólyomi (2017: 33).</ref><ref>Sallaberger (2023: 36-37)</ref> the adaptation of Akkadian words of Sumerian origin seems to suggest that Sumerian stress tended to be on the last syllable of the word, at least in its citation form. The treatment of forms with grammatical morphemes is less clear. Many cases of [[Apheresis (linguistics)|apheresis]] in forms with enclitics have been interpreted as entailing that the same rule was true of the phonological word on many occasions, i.e. that the stress could be shifted onto the enclitics; however, the fact that many of these same enclitics have allomorphs with apocopated final vowels (e.g. /'''‑'''še/ ~ /-š/) suggests that they were, on the contrary, unstressed when these allomorphs arose.<ref name=":21">Jagersma (2010: 63-67)</ref> It has also been conjectured that the frequent assimilation of the vowels of non-final syllables to the vowel of the final syllable of the word may be due to stress on it.<ref>Zólyomi (2017: 33)</ref> However, a number of ''suffixes'' and ''enclitics'' consisting of /e/ or beginning in /e/ are also assimilated and reduced.<ref>Jagersma (2010: 60, 356)</ref>

In earlier scholarship, somewhat different views were expressed and attempts were made to formulate detailed rules for the effect of  grammatical morphemes and compounding on stress, but with inconclusive results. Based predominantly on patterns of vowel elision, Adam Falkenstein<ref>Falkenstein, A. 1959. Untersuchungen zur sumerischen Grammatik. Zum Akzent des Sumerischen. ''Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie'' 53 (1959) 104.</ref> argued that stress in monomorphemic words tended to be on the first syllable, and that the same applied without exception to reduplicated stems, but that the stress shifted onto the last syllable in a first member of a compound or idiomatic phrase, onto the syllable preceding a (final) suffix/enclitic, and onto the first syllable of the possessive enclitic /-ani/. In his view, single verbal prefixes were unstressed, but longer sequences of verbal prefixes attracted the stress to their first syllable. Jagersma<ref name=":21" /> has objected that many of Falkenstein's examples of elision are medial and so, while the stress was obviously not on the medial syllable in question, the examples do not show where it ''was''.

Joachim Krecher<ref>Krecher, J. 1969. Verschlußlaute und Betonung im Sumerischen, in: M. Dietrich, W. Röllig, ed., ''Lišan mitḥurti (Festschrift Wolfram Freiherr von Soden). Alter Orient und Altes Tetament 1''. Neukirchen-Vluyn. 1969. 157–197.</ref> attempted to find more clues in texts written phonetically by assuming that geminations, plene spellings and unexpected "stronger" consonant qualities were clues to stress placement. Using this method, he confirmed Falkenstein's views that reduplicated forms were stressed on the first syllable and that there was generally stress on the syllable preceding a (final) suffix/enclitic, on the penultimate syllable of a polysyllabic enclitic such as -/ani/, -/zunene/ etc., on the last syllable of the first member of a compound, and on the first syllable in a sequence of verbal prefixes. However, he found that single verbal prefixes received the stress just as prefix sequences did, and that in most of the above cases, another stress often seemed to be present as well: on the stem to which the suffixes/enclitics were added, on the second compound member in compounds, and possibly on the verbal stem that prefixes were added to or on following syllables. He also did not agree that the stress of monomorphemic words was typically initial and believed to have found evidence of words with initial as well as with final stress;<ref>Op.cit. 178-179.</ref> in fact, he did not even exclude the possibility that stress was normally stem-final.<ref>Op.cit.: 193.</ref>

Pascal Attinger<ref>Attinger (1993: 145-146)</ref> has partly concurred with Krecher, but doubts that the stress was ''always'' on the syllable preceding a suffix/enclitic and argues that in a prefix sequence, the stressed syllable wasn't the first one, but rather the last one if heavy and the next-to-the-last one in other cases. Attinger has also remarked that the patterns observed may be the result of [[Akkadian language#Stress|Akkadian influence]] - either due to linguistic convergence while Sumerian was still a living language or, since the data comes from the Old Babylonian period, a feature of Sumerian as pronounced by native speakers of Akkadian. The latter has also been pointed out by Jagersma, who is, in addition, sceptical about the very assumptions underlying the method used by Krecher to establish the place of stress.<ref name=":21" />