Talk:Determinative

Determinative vs. Sumerogram
I am not sure LUGAL should be considered a determinative. My general impression of Broze Age monarchs doesn't lead me to imagine they would have been amused if you omitted the pronunciation of their title. But I'll need to dig for a source on this. --dab (𒁳) 09:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you are right. Edzard certainly does not consider it one. Enki H. (talk) 15:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Cuneiform determinatives
I made a couple of changes to this section, but it needs a major overhaul. I suspect that determinative practices in Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite have been conflated, whereas there are differences among them. In addition, material which is cited as having come from Dietz Edzard's Sumerian grammar is not there (I have Edzard open in front of me now).

Determinatives in Sumerian may occur either before or after the word. On pp 9-10 Edzard lists 14 determinatives, of which 9 come before the noun modified, 3 come after, 2 are variable, attested in both positions, and 1 so rare I have never seen it, so I don't know in what position it occurs. The determinative in Sumerian, no matter its position, is ALWAYS transliterated with a small-case letter (Edzard provides examples). I noticed that here and on some other related pages it is stated that the determinative is written with capital letters, but this is incorrect for Sumerian. In addition to Edzard's demonstration of correct determinative transliteration, one can also see this on any reputable website that has transliteration, e.g. the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

This section also gives determinatives which are not used in Sumerian (and not listed in Edzard), specifically m, f, kur, lu2mesh, and e2. In late Akkadian, written by Akkadian speakers who don't fully understand what they're doing and who are importing Akkadian practices into Sumerian, one may occasionally find these determinatives used with Sumerian words, but in such cases they are evidence of ungrammatical and incorrect Sumerian, and should not be taken as Sumerian norms. -Mother of Otherness 09:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mother of Otherness (talk • contribs)
 * Well, could you then list all determinatives provided by Edzard, at least in transliteraion? And I think we need a separate subsection for cuneiform determinatives used not in Sumerian but in other languages used cuneiform. Akkadian, in the first place, but also Hurrian, Urartian, Elamite and Hittite. --Koryakov Yuri (talk) 12:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"Apollo Guidance Computer" section unclear
That section currently reads:


 * Commands were entered numerically, as two-digit numbers: Verb, and Noun. Verb described the type of action to be performed and Noun specified which data was affected by the action specified by the Verb command. Verb and Noun function as a determinative symbol.

Which one was determinative? Both? This doesn't really make sense. ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 14:53, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Cuneiform
The article reads:

"In transliterations of Sumerian, the determinatives are written in superscript in lower case."

I know next to nothing about Sumerian or cuneiform transliteration. But if this is correct, why do I often see the determinatives written in superscript in upper case? Even the examples given in the article are mostly upper case. e.g. GIŠ, KUR, URU, etc. Is there some misunderstanding on my part, or is the article wrong? 76.111.168.184 (talk) 12:47, 28 October 2020 (UTC)