Journal issue

“New discussions on the sDm.t=f verb form in Old and Middle Egyptian”
This article discusses several issues about the sDm.t=f verb form in Old and Middle Egyptian. As starting point, in chap. 2, an overview of all facts about the sDm.t=f considered as valid by the author is presented, based on the prominent publication of Louis Zonhoven, “Studies on the sDm.t=f verb form in Middle Egyptian” (1997): (1) there are only three secured syntactical usages, i.e. n-sDm.t=f “he has not yet heard”, r-sDm.t=f “until he hears/has heard”, Dr-sDm.t=f “before he hears/has heard”; (2) the main or one main semantic feature is the “relative future”; (3) the verbal stems are: III. inf.: jr+.t, II. gem.: m#.t; Anormal: rD+.t, j+.t/jw+.t; (4) a distinctive passive form existed, which is characterised by a specific morphological type jr+.yt, ms+.yt etc. at the III. inf. roots; (5) several phenomena do not belong to the sDm.t=f form, i.e. the supposed “narrative usage” in some literal texts such as Sinuhe and in connection with other prepositions, i.e. m, mj, m-Xt etc.; a specific type wn.t, appearing after some prepositions and in the negative construction n-wn.t “there is not” can be identified as a specific verbal noun wn.t, used also as a particle for introducing noun clauses und building conjunctions; some other usages with a verbal form ending on t, e.g. as object of verbs of perception, can be more accurately analysed as verbal noun sDm.t/jr+.w/yt; the extraordinary verbal types jw+.t=f and jn+.t=f, used as a subjunctive verb form, are, at least on the synchronic level, simple allomorphs of the subjunctive, and should be excluded from the discussion.
Thereafter, the following issues are under discussion, including detailed overviews about the research history, for a better understanding of the complex matter: Chap. 3 deals with the supposed connection of sDm.t=f with other verb forms, especially the verbal noun sDm.t/jr+.w/t (the so-called “complementary infinitive”) and the future participle sDm.tj=fj, a discussion which was revived some years ago by J.P. Allen and A. Stauder. However, it is argued that – on the synchronic level – there was no real (or no longer significant) connection between the sDm.t=f and the verbal noun, and that both also are not connected to the sDm.tj=fj, which seems to be in morphological relation to the prospective sDm=f/jr+.w=f and the verbal noun sDm(.w)/jr+.w (the so-called “negative complement”). Chap. 4 presents a new proposal for the anormal passive form; it is argued that it may be a kind of V-passive, like the perfective sDm.w passive and the prospective sdmm passive. Chap. 5 concentrates on semantics and aims to show that the significant semantic value of the sDm.t=f is not only “relative future”, but “relative future-perfect”, a bi-referential form which always relates to two reference points in the context. The final chapter (chap. 6) discusses the formula r-Hz+.t(-wj)-NN “so that NN praises/d (me)”; here the sDm.t=f was only one candidate under discussion, but it is argued that the infinitive would be the better solution.

This paper discusses the use of multiword expressions (MWEs) consisting of the noun |b “heart” with a metonymic or figurative meaning in Old Egyptian. It has the following parts: (§ 1) a theoretical approach, which provides a definition of “multiword expression” according to studies on Natural Language Processing and a typology of MWEs; (§ 2) an explanation of the semantic uses of |b in Old Egyptian; (§ 3) a syntactic and semantic analysis of 65 Old Egyptian MWEs containing the word |b and an annotation of 115 instances (4–118); and (§ 4) a typology of MWEs containing the word |b and a formulation of the rules involved in their formation.

“The Throne Name and a Unique Epithet of Psusennes II”
When Psusennes II acceded to the throne, he chose as his throne name tjt.j-ḫprw-rꜤw śtp.n-rꜤw “‘he with emblematic manifestation is Re,’ whom Re has chosen” and set his proper name in the form pꜢ-śbꜢ-ḫꜤj-m-njw.t mrjj-jmnw “Psusennes (‘the star which has appeared in the town, i.e. Thebes’), beloved of Amun”. Sometime during his reign, he must have adopted, perhaps in addition to this first set of names, an altered set of names with further epithets. While his revised proper name ḥrw pꜢ-śbꜢ-ḫꜤj-m-njw.t mrjj-jmnw “Horus-Psusennes (‘the star which has appeared in the town, i.e. Thebes’), beloved of Amun” is clear in reading and meaning, the hieroglyphs inserted into the cartouche of his throne name have resisted all attempts at an explanation. After a review of earlier propositions, the expanded throne name of Psusennes II will be examined anew in this article. Based on this, the augmented throne name is analysed as tjt.j-ḫprw-rꜤw sꜢ wtj śtp.n-rꜤw “‘he with emblematic manifestation is Re,’ the son and (inheritable) first-begotten, whom Re has chosen”. Together, sꜢ wtj “the son and (inheritable) first-begotten” and ḥrw “Horus” form a finely composed pair of additions to the cartouche names of Psusennes II which refer to Horus’ accession as heir of Geb and Osiris and anticipate a shift of royal ideology well-known from the XXII Dynasty.

This paper discusses the grammatical pattern NP – pw – AP of Earlier Egyptian. The pattern appears to combine characteristics of both the nominal sentence and the adverbial sentence, which has impeded its understanding. While a broad consensus has been reached concerning its semantic function, something like “it is (the case) that NP is AP”, its syntactic structure has remained less clear. We face a mismatch between the semantic structure of the pattern (it is that NP is AP) and its apparent syntactic surface structure (it is NP, being AP). The proposed explanation is that the underlying subject of the embedded clause has been raised into the matrix clause, a phenomenon known as subject raising. While subject raising is well known from many languages around the world, the raising of the subject into the predicate position of the matrix clause, as seen here, seems to be a hitherto undescribed linguistic phenomenon.

The paper highlights two rare constructions of the Third Future in Late Egyptian. These rare constructions are iw.f + prepositional phrase / iri N + prepositional phrase and iw.f+ Statve / iri N+ Stative. The Egyptian scribe interchanged the so-called third future with one of these rare constructions in some special cases such as the oath, wills, and as apodosis of a conditional sentence. The rare construction iw.f + prepositional phrase / iri N + prepositional phrase is found more frequently in the texts than the other construction with stative. Although several studies described the two rare constructions and discussed their meaning and their origin in LE, the implications are still unclear due to the low number of attestations; this paper provides more explicit evidence for both rare constructions in LE. As for the texts from the 19th to 22nd dynasties, the corpus shows that the two rare constructions occurred more often in the non-literary texts than in the literary texts. The attestations of the 21st and 22nd dynasties were much rarer; only one example is found in the texts of the 21st Dynasty, while 5 examples appear in the 22nd Dynasty. Finally, the examples of the 20th Dynasty were more numerous than those of the other dynasties of the corpus, because the two rare constructions are attested more often in the literary and non-literary texts.
Keywords: The Third Future, The analogue Third Future, the rare constructions of the Future.

A survey of grammatical agreement in Earlier (Old and Middle) Egyptian. The morpho-syntactic, formal-functional, and typological characteristics of this phenomenon are scrutinised and the features, controllers, targets, and domains of agreement in Earlier Egyptian defined. The discussion closes with a summary of findings and a glance at the diachronic fate of the system outlined.

“An addendum to the discussion about the basic semantic values of the participles jr+ and jrr”
In a former article (2020) I argued that the terms ‘perfective’ and ‘imperfective’ suffice as cover terms for the basic semantic values of the participles jr+ and jrr. Some years later K. Jansen-Winkeln (2022) listed several objections against my argumentation. This short article presents counter-arguments and also new arguments for my interpretation. It is also shown, that the semantic pair “simple/unmarked/singularic—distributive/pluralic” can be identified as nuance of the head pair “perfective—imperfective”.