One of the simplest definitions of a noun is that it is word for a thing or an idea. Adjectives are words that describe or qualify nouns. As in many other languages, Akkadian nouns and adjectives have either masculine or feminine gender and can be singular or plural in number. They also have case endings, which denote their grammatical function in the sentence. Their basic meaning is given by their root consonants plus any extra prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.
When you have read this page, you might like to test your understanding by trying Cuneiform exercise 1.
All Akkadian words (except function words) carry their basic meaning in two, three or four consonants. This is a defining feature of the Semitic language family, which also includes Hebrew and Arabic. For instance, DMQ encapsulates the idea "good", from which Akkadian makes the noun dumqum "goodness", the adjective damqum "good", the adverb damqiš "well" and various verbs such as idammiq, "it will be well". Similarly, from LMN "bad" we get the noun lumnum "evil", the adjective lemnum "bad", the adverb lemniš "badly", and various verbs such as ilemmin, "it will be bad". The order of the consonants matters: QDM, for instance, has a basic meaning "before" (hence qudmum "front (side)", qudmûm "primordial", etc.) while DQM, MDQ, MQD, and QMD don't mean anything at all.
While three-consonant roots are perhaps the most frequent in Akkadian, many commonly occurring nouns don't conform to this pattern. For instance mātum "land" and awīlum "man" just have two root consonants (and no associated verbs). Loanwords from other, non-Semitic languages tend to look different too: ṭupšarrum "scribe" from Sumerian dub-sar is a good example. Akkadian nouns may also have extra consonants thanks to affixes which further define the noun's meaning.
The root consonants of a word only carry its basic lexical meaning. It is the consonants and vowels around the root that give a word its grammatical function. Collectively these prefixes, infixes, and suffixes are called affixes. So the nouns dumqum "goodness" and lumnum "evil" just have an infix -u- between the first and second consonants and a case ending -um. Structurally simple nouns like this can have any infix vowel -a-, -e-, -i-, or -u- but adjectives almost invariably take only -a- or -e-.
Other affix combinations indicate more specific meanings. For instance ŠRQ has a basic meaning "steal". šurqum is "(a) theft" and šarqum is "stolen", as we might expect. But Akkadian also has šāriqum "(occasional) thief" and šarrāqum "(habitual, professional) thief" as well as the abstract noun šarqūtum "(the idea of) theft" and the particular noun šāriqānum "that thief". These patterns - which may include the doubling of any of the root consonants - can potentially be combined with any set of three root consonants.
Akkadian's ability to combine consonantal roots with regular patterns of affixes means that Akkadian has a very big vocabulary. But this is not bad news. If you learn the meanings of roots on the one hand, and the meanings of the shapes words can take on the other hand, you can apply both sets of knowledge to translate an Akkadian word. Remember, though, that a technically possible combination does not necessarily produce a meaningful outcome. For instance, some three-consonant nouns - such as kalbum "dog" - do not have associated adjectives, verbs, etc., because they would not mean anything. Common sense also plays an important part in understanding a language!
We shall now look at the three most important types of suffix, which tell us the function of the noun and adjective in the context of the words around it.
In English we use word order to show who is doing what to whom. (Think of the journalists' saying that "Dog bites man" is not news but "Man bites dog" always makes the headlines.) Akkadian uses word order too, but it also distinguishes different roles in the sentence by the case endings -um, -am, and -im. Just like English newspaper headlines, Akkadian does not use the articles "the" or "a". We have to supply them in our translations, based on the context.
Adjectives immediately follow the nouns they qualify. They take the same case too. For single nouns and adjectives the case endings are identical, e.g., kalbum lemnum "bad dog" (nominative), kalbam lemnam (accusative), and kalbim lemnim (genitive).
The English language does not pay much attention to gender. People and some animals are either masculine or feminine; everything else is a neuter "it". In Akkadian, by contrast, all nouns and adjectives are either masculine or feminine. They are easy to tell apart because feminine nouns all have a suffix -(a)t before the case ending -um. It is easy to guess the meaning of ṭupšarratum and kalbatum, for instance: "female scribe" and "bitch" (or "female dog").
It is perhaps obvious that male people and animals have female counterparts. Apart from them, most nouns that are neuter in English are masculine in Akkadian: it is the default gender. But there are also many feminine nouns: napištum "breath, life", for instance, or nērtum "murder". (The feminine suffix is just -t- in these two examples because the preceding -a- is not needed. In ṭupšarratum and kalbatum the -a- prevents a consonant cluster (rrt, lbt), which would be impossible to write in cuneiform.)
The vast majority of feminine nouns take this final -(a)t-, but as you read more Akkadian you will discover that there are a few suffix-less feminine nouns, as well as some - especially words for paired body-parts (eyes, ears, hands, etc.) - that are masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. The dictionaries give information about irregularly gendered nouns.
The gender of an adjective must be the same as the noun it is describing. So we have kalbum damqum "good dog" but feminine kalbatum damqitum. The feminine form of this adjective is not *damqatum, as we miht expect, because the underlying shape of the adjective is not really damqum but damiqum. (As a general rule short vowels between single consonants are supressed in the middle of a word.) This is particularly important to remember with adjectives that have a final weak consonant. For instance, rabûm "big" is really rabiʾum. So we have kalbum rabûm "big dog" but feminine kalbatum rabītum. (Go to the sound rules page for more information.)
Akkadian nouns and adjectives can be singular or plural (and some can be dual - pairs - but that is a more advanced topic that we will not discuss here). There are just two cases in the plural: nominative (for the grammatical subjects of sentences, as before) and oblique (the plural counterpart to both accusative and genitive).
Feminine plural nouns and adjectives both take the endings -ātum (nominative) and -ātim (oblique). For instance, compare ṭupšarrātum damqātum "good female scribes" (nominative) with ṭupšarrātim damqātim (oblique).
Masculine plurals are slightly more awkward. Adjectives look like their feminine plural counterpart, ending -ūtum (nominative) and -ūtim (oblique). But masculine plural nouns are the odd ones out: they end with -ū (nominative) and -ī (oblique) with no final m. Thus we have ṭupšarrū damqūtum "good male scribes" (nominative) and ṭupšarrī damqūtim (oblique).
To sum up all the rules given here about case, gender, and number, this table gives all possible grammatical forms of kalbum damqum "good dog" and mārum rabûm "big (adult) son" and their feminine equivalents.
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. s. | kalbum damqum | kalbatum damiqtum | mārum rabûm | mārtum rabītum | |
| Acc. | kalbam damqam | kalbatam damiqtam | māram rabâm | mārtam rabītam | |
| Gen. | kalbim damqim | kalbatim damiqtim | mārim rabîm | mārtim rabītim | |
| Nom. pl. | kalbū damqūtum | kalbātum damqātum | mārū rabûtum | mārātum rabâtum | |
| Obl. pl. | kalbī damqūtim | kalbātim damqātim | mārī rabûtim | mārātim rabâtim |
Content last modified on 07 Jul 2012.
Eleanor Robson
Eleanor Robson, 'Nouns and adjectives: naming and describing things in Akkadian', Knowledge and Power, Higher Education Academy, 2012 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/knpp/cuneiformrevealed/akkadianlanguage/nounsandadjectives/]