Eran Cohen – författare

This volume examines conditional structures in Old Babylonian from a linguistic point of view, drawing on a corpus of letters, law collections, and omens. All of the conditional patterns are provided with a syntactic characterization, so that each conditional sequence is differentiated from all other potential sequences. The volume includes detailed discussion about the values of various verbal and other predicative forms in the conditional structures occurring in the corpus, the differences between superficially similar conditional patterns, and the functions of the various conditional patterns. Many traditionally difficult points are treated and given suitable solutions. The concluding sections of each chapter include linguistic glosses and more general discussions that provide linguistic typologists a window onto the conditional system of Old Babylonian.

This monograph is a corpus-based description of the modal system of epistolary Old Babylonian, one of the best attested Akkadian dialects, using the European structural method. The study strives to match a concrete exponent (i.e., an array of formal features, morphological and syntactic) with a semantic value, in using syntactic criteria. The book treats:1. the asseverative paradigm (used for insistence, concession and oath), explaining the syntactic mechanism behind these forms;2. the various precative-based paradigms in various syntactic conditions: the directive group, the wish group and the interrogative group;3. the same forms occurring in special syntactic patterns-the sequential precative and the concessive-conditional precative;4. the paratactic conditional; and5. the modal nominal syntagm ša para:sim.Together with this description, some additional problems are addressed for which solutions are developed: the focus system of Old Babylonian; the general linguistic issue of "emphatic assertion" (using an English corpus); and a way to describe the syntactic nature of paratactic conditional structures.