Gedanken zur Suffixaufnahme im Mittani-Brief

Abstract In Hurrian, genitive modifiers are morpho-syntactically treated as simply other attributes and are therefore subjected to agreement by copying the case marker of their head nouns ( Suffixaufnahme ). It is generally observed that, in the language of the Mittani Letter, when two hierarchically different genitive attributes are related to the same head noun a restriction of the Suffixaufnahme occurs, whereby the higher-ranking genitive, i.e., the one immediately dependent on the head noun, fails to copy the case of the head noun, and the lower-ranking genitive then copies only the case marker of the higher-ranking genitive. This article aims at proving the validity of this established rule by discussing relevant passages from the Mittani Letter.