"Ba-e-a-e11"?

[u/bhrh]

Hello all, I'm new to studying Sumerian and I've been trying to read through and dissect Inana's Descent, primarily going off of this composite text on CDLI. I'm quite confused by a verbal formation that's repeated a lot in the early lines, with a typical example being:

Inana an mun-ʃub ki mun-ʃub kur-a <ba-e-a-e^(11)\>

I understand that broadly, one could translate this verb simply as "she descended," but I'm trying to grasp just what's going on with these prefixes. ba- makes perfect sense as the middle-voice/directional/whatever prefix. However, going through several grammars, the only way I can seem to parse the e- and a- are as the 2sg subject and an indirect object marker (presumably resuming kur-a?), respectively. But this seems quite odd, as in the previous verb, mun-ʃub, Inana is clearly being referred to in the third person. Am I missing something else going on here? Another idea a friend and I brainstormed was that this could be some form of reduplication (perhaps indicating all the various layers of the world she descended through, or even just for poetical flair?), but then the specific formation seems a bit weird regardless. Does anyone have any insight?

[u/EnricoDandolo1204]

I believe the easiest way to analyse the verb here (and in Inana and Sukaletuda 4ff.) is as follows:

ba^MP = e^LOC = ʔe11 = Ø^3S.A

On the use of e11 with the locative see Attinger 2005 in BiOr 62, 285, reviewing Katz 2003. Neither of them comment specifically on the {a}. Definitionally, if the locative prefix appears in the form /e/, no other prefix can follow, so I am inclined to interpret it as representing a glottal stop to prevent the locative prefix from assimilating with the verbal stem.

[u/justdoinbearthings]

The verb e₁₁ means "to ascend" or "to descend". If e₁₁ occurred with -ta- dimensional prefix, it would indicate the starting point of the action "descended from ...". Here we have the locative prefix -e-, indicating the destination of the action, hence "she descended into (the netherworld)". Note the locative in kur-ra. According to Gragg the -a- is not morphological but may represent a transition like a glide or glottal stop between the preceding vowel of the locative and following vowel of the verbal base.

In other OB Sumerian literary texts, this sequence also appears with other verbs that begin with a vowel (AK, e₃) and there are also writings with -a-e- instead, so Gragg may be right. However, I tend to think of these forms as -a- being the coloring of the vowel for the locative prefix due to vowel harmony with ba- while -e- is the underlying locative form. For example, we have spellings such as ba-a-ku₄ "he entered into ..."; bi₂-i-gi₄ "she returned it into..."; ba-a-e₃ "he went up into (heaven)". I suppose it would be a kind of pleonastic form like ba-ta-ra where -ta- is the underlying ablative form.

[u/bhrh]

Thank you so much u/EnricoDandolo1204 and u/justdoinbearthings !! Both your answers have clarified a lot for me.