The world's oldest literature : studies in Sumerian belles-lettres /
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Literature begins at Sumer, we may say. Given that this ancient crossroads of tin and copper produced not only bronze and the entire Bronze Age, but also by neccesity, the first system of record-keeping and the technique of writing. Scribal schools served to propogate the new technique and their curriculum grew to create, preserve and transmit all manner of creative poetry. In a lifetime of research, the author has studied multiple aspects of this most ancient literary oeuvre, including such questions as chronology and bilingualism, as well as contributing fundamental insights into specific genres such as proverbs, letter-prayers and lamentations. In addition, he has drawn conclusions for the comparative or contextual approach to biblical literature. His studies, widely scattered in diverse publications for nearly fifty years, are here assembled in convenient one-volume format, made more user-friendly by extensive cross-references and indices. \'Well-informed and sober, these essays offer rewarding reading for every area of biblical scholarship.\' A.R. Millard
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Collection of essays published elsewhere previously between 1962 and 2006. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047427278 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The grammar of perspective : the Sumerian conjugation prefixes as a system of voice /
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The so-called Sumerian conjugation prefixes are the most poorly understood and perplexing elements of Sumerian verbal morphology. Approaching the problem from a functional-typological perspective and basing the analysis upon semantics, Professor Woods argues that these elements, in their primary function, constitute a system of grammatical voice, in which the active voice is set against the middle voice. The latter is represented by heavy and light markers that differ with respect to focus and emphasis. As a system of grammatical voice, the conjugation prefixes provided Sumerian speakers with a linguistic means of altering the perspective from which events may be viewed, giving speakers a series of options for better approximating in language the infinitely graded spectrum of human conceptualization and experience. "Woods is to be commended for establishing a new precedent for analyzing Sumerian grammar which will hopefully become a model for future studies of the language." Paul Delnero, Johns Hopkins University
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Partly based on the author's dissertation (doctoral--Harvard University). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [313]-330) and indexes. :
9789047442080 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.