This book investigates the mechanisms of syntactic evolution in Akkadian, specifically focusing on how the language adapted its sentential complementation over two millennia. Guy Deutscher, a linguist specializing in historical language change, utilizes a vast corpus of cuneiform texts spanning from 2500BC to 500BC to trace these developments. He argues that the shift in grammatical structures is not random but is directly correlated with the increasing communicative demands of a complex, urbanizing Mesopotamian society.

Linguists and historians of the Ancient Near East frequently cite this work as a rigorous application of diachronic syntax to a dead language. Scholars note the technical density of the analysis, which serves as a foundational text for understanding the evolution of Semitic grammatical systems.