Gilgamesch-Epos und Erra-Lied: Zu einem Aspekt des Verbalsystems.

• Author: Foster, Benjamin R.
• Position: Book Review

Gilgamesch-Epos und Erra-Lied: Zu einem Aspekt des Verbalsystems. By HANS HIRSCH. Archiv fur Orientforschung, Beiheft 29. Vienna: SELBSTVERLAG DES INSTITUTS FUR ORIENTFORSCHUNG DER UNIVERSITAT WIEN, 2002. Pp. iv + 257. [euro]62.

Reflecting on Akkadian grammar in 1975 ("Akkadische Grammatik--Erorterungen und Fragen," OrNS 44 [1975]: 245-322), Hans Hirsch turned his attention to "the so-called Ventive" (pp. 313-14). From the point of view of Semitic grammar, it has always been tempting to reconstruct a four-ending symmetry for both the noun and verb: -[empty set], -u, -i, and -a. In the Akkadian verb, the verb implied, of course, in the title of this book, -[empty set] served for the indicative mood, -u for the subjunctive mood, and -i for the "i-modus," the very existence of which is disputed. The subject of this book, carrying through on Hirsch's discussion of 1975, is in the first instance forms ending in -a or -a(m). His 1975 essay suggested that the time had come for individual detailed studies of grammatical issues and that the dictionaries now made the source material for such inquiries readily available for analysis, even though, in this instance, he found himself looking up many of the forms in the original to be sure the ending was there or not. Hirsch has in effect responded to his own challenge by studying in detail just one of the many issues he raised and reviewed in his essay of 1975, here in the form of a large monograph focused on the -a endings of verb forms in two Akkadian texts.

The book opens, not with the usual preface, but with a short tribute upholding the memory of Ernst Weidner, who received his professorship during the Nazi era. Since the majority of scholars who, as adults, lived through the times referred to have died and in their lifetimes discussed them only with family or intimate friends, if at all, the way has been left open for judgment on them by younger people, without personal experience or reliable oral tradition of the pressures, fears, and contradictions of the Nazi era on scholars of the ancient Near East. For some, like Albrecht Goetze, there was no middle way: one spoke out against Nazism or one was a de facto collaborator. For others, such as Weidner, this did not seem an option; one followed one's career as the circumstances allowed. Weidner could not have received his appointment had he been deemed politically unreliable, but Hirsch points out that Weidner did take risks in a scholarly climate in...