Conjunction, Contiguity, Contingency: On Relationships between Events in the Egyptian and Coptic Verbal Systems

✍ Scribed by Leo Depuydt

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 300
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Language is in large part about the description of events occurring in the world around us. Relationships of different sorts may be perceived between those events. And some of these relationships can be expressed by specific verb forms--or by syntactic constructions involving specific verb forms. The present study examines this facet of the Egyptian and Coptic verbal systems in isolation, singling out three types of relationships between events and the linguistic means by which they are expressed. The first essay studies the verb form called "conjunctive," arguing that the function of the conjunctive is to "con-join" a chain of two or more events into a single--though compound--notion. The second essay shows how a certain syntactic construction can be used to refer to events that are contiguous, that is, events that succeed one another rapidly in time. The third essay examines verb forms that refer to events whose occurrence is contingent on the occurrence of other events implied or explicitly mentioned in the context. The respective grammatical phenomena are labeled conjunction, contiguity, and contingency. This study constitutes a significant advancement in our understanding of the ancient language of Egypt, and will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Egyptology, Coptology, and the Ancient Near East, as well as linguists, Byzantinists and Classicists.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Preface: On Relationships between Events......Page 12
I: CONJUNCTION......Page 20
1. Introduction......Page 23
2. The Conjunctive as "Con-joiner"......Page 28
3. The Conjunctive Following Second Tenses......Page 33
4. The Conjunctive Following the Negative Imperative of gmj "find" and nau "see"......Page 54
5. Coptic nci in the Conjunctive Chain......Page 61
B. Negation on the Level of the Compound Action......Page 64
C. Types of Negations......Page 68
D. A Comparison of Types I.c and Il.a......Page 70
E. A Comparison of Types I.d and Il.b......Page 71
F. A Comparison of Types I.d and Il.a......Page 75
G. Types of Negation: Examples......Page 78
7. Semantic Types of Conjunctive Chains......Page 86
A. Introduction......Page 94
B. The Function of the Conjugation Base tare......Page 95
C. The Promissive Future and the Conjunctive: A Comparison of Their Functions......Page 99
A. Omission of Elements......Page 113
B. An Etymological Translation......Page 115
10. Relationship of the Conjunctive with What Precedes......Page 117
A. Equivalents of the Conjunctive in Egyptian and Other Languages......Page 122
B. The Middle Egyptian Predecessor of the Conjunctive......Page 127
C. A Con-joining Construction in Nominal Phrases......Page 128
12. Concluding Remarks......Page 132
13. A Bibliography of the Conjunctive......Page 134
II: CONTIGUITY......Page 136
1. Introduction: The Notion of "Contiguity"......Page 144
2. Contiguity in Sinuhe B 200......Page 148
3. Contrastive Emphasis and Contiguity......Page 159
4. Translating Contiguous Events......Page 161
5. Morphological and Syntactic Criteria......Page 164
6. Events Prone to Contracting a Relationship of Contiguity......Page 171
A. Transitions from Night to Day......Page 172
B. Transitions from Day to Night......Page 179
C. Another Transition from One Period of Time to Another......Page 185
D. Expressions Referring to the End Point of a Motion......Page 186
7. Expressions of Contiguity in the Story of Sinuhe......Page 197
8. [sup(c)]h[sup(c)].n sdm.n=f......Page 205
9. Excursus: jwj "come" and jnj "bring"......Page 208
10. Simultaneity as an Expression of Contiguity......Page 211
11. An Expression of Contiguity Dating to the New Kingdom......Page 216
III: CONTINGENCY......Page 220
A. From Egyptian hr to Coptic ša......Page 227
B. sdm.hr=f and jw=f sdm=f in Middle Egyptian......Page 231
C. Examples of sdm.hr=f with Implied Conditions......Page 233
D. Contingent and General Aorist in the Papyrus Ebers......Page 241
E. Neutralization between sdm.hr=f and jw=f sdm=f......Page 243
F. Condition and Result......Page 244
G. The Aorist after Middle Egyptian......Page 246
H. General and Specific Contingency......Page 251
A. Sdm.k3=f/k3=f sdm=f in Conditional Sentences......Page 253
B. Examples of sdm.k3=f with Implied Conditions......Page 256
C. K3(=f) sdm=f in the Letters of the Kahun Archive......Page 259
D. Contrary-to-fact Conditions......Page 260
E. The Particle k3......Page 261
F. Neutralization between Contingent and General Future......Page 262
G. The Contingent Future in Coptic......Page 263
3. Sdm.jn=f as Contingent Past......Page 266
A. The Contingent Tenses of Middle Egyptian......Page 268
B. Translating the Contingent Tenses......Page 269
C. The Conditionnel in French and Other Parallels to the Contingent Tenses outside Egyptian......Page 270
D. Contingency and Contrast......Page 274
1. Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian......Page 276
2. Late Egyptian......Page 279
4. Coptic......Page 281
C......Page 285
G......Page 286
M......Page 287
S......Page 288
W......Page 289
Y......Page 290
A......Page 291
C......Page 292
H......Page 294
J......Page 295
N......Page 296
P......Page 297
S......Page 298
T......Page 299
W......Page 300