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5 - Nominal syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2009

Antonio Loprieno
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

Introduction

Throughout its history, Egyptian displays a variety of patterns for sentences with nominal predicate. The predicate of such a sentence can be a nominal (NP) or an adjectival phrase (AdjP): rmt pw “it is a man (NP)” vs. nfr sw “he is good (AdjP).” At the syntactic level, bipartite patterns consist only of predicate and subject, as in the above sentences, whereas tripartite patterns display a copula as carrier of the nexus (rmt pw z3-nht “Sinuhe is a man”). Finally, considering also the pragmatic dimension, the typology of Egyptian nominal sentences shows a further distinction between unmarked structures, in which third person subjects follow it (rmt pw, nfr sw), whereas first and second person subjects tend to precede the predicate (jnk rmt “I am a man,” ntk nfr “you are good”), and marked patterns, which display a generalized preference for the specific subject to occupy the first position in the sentence (ntk hrw “you are Horus,” jn ntr mrr rmt.t “it is god who loves mankind”).

The nominal constructions to which this chapter is devoted are captured in table 5.1. We shall first consider the nominal patterns (section 5.2) and the syntactic structure in which an entire clause is embedded as predicate of a nominal sentence (section 5.3), and then move to the adjectival sentences (section 5.4). We will then devote some attention to the more complex nominal patterns such as possessive, interrogative, and existential sentences (sections 5.5–5.6) and to the impact of negation on nominal patterns (section 5.7). The last few sections will deal with the evolution of all types of nominal sentence in Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic (sections 5.8–5.11).

Type
Chapter
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Ancient Egyptian
A Linguistic Introduction
, pp. 103 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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  • Nominal syntax
  • Antonio Loprieno, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Ancient Egyptian
  • Online publication: 08 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611865.007
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  • Nominal syntax
  • Antonio Loprieno, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Ancient Egyptian
  • Online publication: 08 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611865.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Nominal syntax
  • Antonio Loprieno, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Ancient Egyptian
  • Online publication: 08 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611865.007
Available formats
×