CHETVERUKHIN ALEXANDERS. Some Theoretical Aspects of Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence. Structure and Semantics. 1990.17.12

Altorientalische Forschungen 17 I 1990 3 - 1 7 A L E X A N D E R S . C H E T V E R U K H I N

Some Theoretical Aspects of Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence.

Structure and Semantics

The interest for the nominal sentence (NS) theory within the modern general linguistic methods, mostly those of generative and semantic syntax, does not diminish at all now; just the opposite, it does show a steady increase in modern egyptology. One can see it, even not aiming to tackle the problem, just from the abundant literature of recent years. First of all, we have in mind the following works: a number of articles in the "Studies Presented to Hans Jakob Polotsky", articles by Westendorf and Schlachter (the latter being an answer from a special-ist in general linguspecial-istics to the problems set forth by the former) in the "Nach-richten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen", Schenkel in "Fest-schrift Westendorf", then Callender "Studies in the Nominal Sentence in Egyp-tian and Coptic" and critics thereof byAnneBiedenkopf-Ziehner andW. Schenkel, furthermore Roeder in "Göttinger Miszellen", the contents of "Crossroad. Chaos or the Beginning of a New Paradigm", and Depuidt in "Orientalia".!

This interest is by no means a kind of fashion epidemic : the very fact that the Egyptian verbal finite forms are possessive by their structure (but the so-called Old Perfective, or the Quality and State Form after N. S. Petrovsky) inevi-tably witnesses to the common orientation of the Egyptian syntactic patterns towards the nominal one. This is evident from the well-known monograph by

' D . W . Y o u n g (ed.), Studies Presented to H a n s Jakob Polotsky, Beacon Hill 1981; W. Westendorf and W. Schlachter, in: Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen 1981, Nr. 3, 7 7 - 7 9 , and Nr. 4, 1 0 3 - 1 1 9 ; W. Schenkel, Fokussierung. Über die Reihenfolge von Subjekt und Prädikat im klassisch-ägyptischen Nominal-satz, in: Studien zu Sprache und Religion Ägyptens (Festschrift W. WTestendorf), Göt-tingen 1984; J'. B. Callender, Studies in the Nominal Sentence in Egyptian and Coptic, Berkeley 1984 (University of California Publications, Near Eastern Studies 24); Anne Biedenkopf-Ziehner in: Enchoria 13 [1985], 2 1 7 - 2 3 2 ; W. Schenkel, „Spezifität" — der Schlüssel zum ägyptisch-koptischen Nominalsatz?, in: BiOr 52 [1985], 256—265; H . Roeder, Die Prädikation im Nominalen Nominalsatz. E i n logisch-semantischer Ansatz, in: GM 91 [1986], 1 - 7 7 ; G.'Englund - P. J. Frandsen (ed.), Crossroad. Chaos or the Beginning of a N e w Paradigm. Papers from the Conference on Egyptian Gram-mar. Helsingor 2 8 - 3 0 May 1986, Copenhagen 1986 (The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Near Eeast Studies Publications 1); L. Depuidt, The Emphatic Nominal Sentence in Egyptian and Coptic, in: Orientaba 56 [1987], 35—54. — See also our recent articles: ¿Jea noAXO^a κ L O Y I E H H I O eraneTCKoro npe^jioHíeHHH, IlcTopuH Η Φ Η Η Ο Η Ο Γ Η Η ApeBiiero H cpe^HeBeKOBoro BocTOKa, Moscow 1987, 64—83; CoBpeMeHHoe cocTOHHHe nayneHHH CTapoenineTCKoro ΜΜΘΗΗΟΓΟ npe«jio>KeHHH, ibid. 84—100; MHTepnpeTaiiHH Asyx OCHOBHHX ΤΙ1Π0Β Πρβ^ΛΟΚΘΗΗΗ Β ΘΓΜΠβΤΟΚΟΜ Η3ΗΚβ, ^ρβΒΗΙΐϋ Η Cpe/JHeBeKOBhltt ΒΟ-CT0K, Moscow 1987, 31—49.

4 Alexander S. Chetveriikliin Junge "Syntax der mittelägyptischen Literatursprache".- The general reason of such a phenomenon seems to be a very archaic typological structure of Egyptian, presumably close to that of the active typology languages.3

Trivial as it is, the languages of active and ergative typology often have pos-sessive predicative constructions.4 However, the profound understanding of various Egyptian language phenomena is expected to be deducible anyway from the NS on different levels of linguistic analysis. And vice versa, the NS ana-lysis is essentially depending on the results gained in the process of all the other spheres in the Egyptian grammar study, up to the obligatory taking into con-sideration both comparative linguistic material and comprehensive data of general linguistic typology. The most complicated field of Egyptian still re-mains that of morphology, despite verily heroic efforts by such outstanding schol-ars as K. Sethe, W. F. Albright, J . Vergote, W. Vycichl, G. Fecht and J . Osing. Nevertheless the problem of "the common denominator" is left open.

The problems above naturally call into existence the issue of parts of speech. Indeed, whatever method of syntactic analysis be applied, in any spoken lan-guage the morphological nature of the constituents is quite clear, or can easily be defined; they may be kept in the background and put forward if necessary. Nothing of the kind appears in Egyptian—the problem had already been fore-said by Gunn in a review on the well-known work of Faulkner.5 So, when speak-ing of the Egyptian material, we would prefer to use mostly not the conventional terms (not really supported by our actual knowledge), such as "Adjective", "Participle" and "Substantive" (except for "Pronouns" (Pr), personal (pers) and demonstrative (dem)), the term "Stem" (St) will be understood as "Quality", "Agentive" (i.e. having verbal semantics with an ex(or im)plicite agens), and "Substantival" (a form substantivized from any part of speech, even from syn-tagmata but Pr.). Thus, we would prefer "Substantival Stem" (St s) instead of "Substantive", "Quality Stem" (St q) for "Adjective", "Agentive Stem" (St ag) in place of "Participle". The totality of the actual forms termed as "Stems" differentiates as follows :

1) semantically, 2) by combinability,

3) functionally on different levels of syntactic analysis, 4) morphologically (partly explicit),

and at last but not in the least by

5) spelling—always bearing in mind that the Egyptian language exists for us only as a written one with a complicated but always very significant

sys-2 F. Junge, Syntax der mittelägyptischen Literatursprache. Grundlagen einer

Struktur-theorie, Mainz a. Rh. 1978.

3 A . C. HeTBepyxHH, Κ onpeneJieHHio ΟΤΡΟΗ ΘΓΗΠΘΤΟΚΟΓΟ HATIKA C T a p o r o COCTOHHHH, ΠΗΟΒ-MeHHbie nauHTHHKH H npoSjieMM HCTopHH KyjibTypu HapoßOB BocTOKa (=ΠΠΗΠΜΚΗΒ). X X rosHiHaH Haymaa ceccHH JIO HB AH CCCP («OKJiaflu H coo6meHHH), Moscow 1985, lacTb Π, 83—94; Πο3ΗςΗΗ ernneTCKoro nsuita Β KOHTCHCHBHOÍÍ ΤΗΠΟΛΟΓΗ« ( s e e p . 17 ).

4 See G. A . Klimov's works: Ο^ΒΡΚ OÖMEÖ TeopHH apraTHBHOcnx, Moscow 1 9 7 3 ; THHOJIO-ΓΗΗ H3HK0B aKTHBHOrO CTpOH, MOSCOW 1 9 7 7 ; IIpHHIJHnH KOHTenCHBHOfi THIIOJIOrHH,

Moscow 1983.

5 B. Gunn: R. O. Faulkner, The Plural and Dual in Old Egyptian, Brussels 1929 (§ 53,

Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence 5 tern of orthography. This peculiarity shows itself in different ways, one of which being the system of graphical determinatives. It can be evinced by concrete exam-ples, interesting not only as such, but in that they also demonstrate the Egyp-tian native mode of estimating the lexical inventory marked above as "Stems". Thus, the set named as St s tends to be written with the graphic determinative of the concrete object meant, which was originally a picture of the thing men-tioned. It was a general tendency in tomb inscriptions for imitativeness of the signs—this was justified by the Egyptian idea of the Beyond, where all that is depicted and mentioned in the inscriptions come to life again and act for the tomb's owner, as if it were in reality,6 let alone that the pictures and images of the tomb in their turn played a role of determinatives for the inscription. Out-side the tomb inscriptions the concrete object picture as a determinative grew more abstract, mainly due to rapid forms of writing (the hieratic and demotic), finally transformating into a current symbol of a class of related objects. In principle, the determinative was now aimed at linking the word-form to a con-crete semantic totality of objects, if the connexion between them seemed to be apparent. As a result, St q was either deprived of any graphic determinative, or equipped with a sign classifying the stem in accordance with the emotional reac-tion of a person being in the condireac-tion implicated by the meaning of the given S t q : "joy", "distress", "prostration" etc.—as a determinative, a human figure or a part thereof is depicted in its proper posture. The verbal stems had deter-minatives depicting human or animal organs producing the fiction, or the in-strument where with the action used to be produced, in the case of a verb of action, not of state; the latter was also determined by the corresponding St q (i.e., derived from the same root). St ag could contain, along with the verbal determinative, that of agens, pointing to a human being or a deity. Prepositions, particles and pronouns as a rule had no determinatives at all, because the first person suffixal pronoun was expressed by an ideogram, not a determinative. The fundamental principle in elaborating the graphic determinative system was that of mental association, whatever forms it could take. According to the prin-ciple in question, not only quality stems, but even some substantival (not of the same roots) and verbal ones might be grouped together—the latter if the action or state designated was associated with a certain human emotional reaction. For example : under the determinative "bad" (sign "sparrow"—G 37 of Gardiner's Sign-list) the following root morphemes are grouped: nds "small", hns "narrow",

bjn "bad", sw "empty", mr "ill, diseased"—all these being St q, wherefrom some

St s could also be derived: nds "commoner", bjn.t "evil" etc., this is naturally so, but also Bq "perish" is classed here—a "pure" verbal St, quite independent. For the first glance it is not clear why it was the sign of sparrow that acquired such meaning. One may reproduce, however, the following semantic implica-tion: "sparrow" — "crops damager" — "bad, harmful" (and simultaneously "an empty field", "small, insufficient harvest") —abstract notion of graphic deter-minative as defining "something bad, harmful, unhappy, insufficient, perishing". In any case, the highly developed determination system is a secondary one, of

6 A new explanation of the tomb images and pictures see in: A. O. BojibuiaKOB, IIpeflCTaB-.leHiie o ABOitHHKe Β Εηιπτβ Craporo uapcTBa, in: "VDl 181 [1987], 3—36.

6 Alexander S. Chetvonikhin

higher rank of the overworked ideography. In Old Egyptian it was still in the process of formation, taking its proper shape only in the Middle Egyptian (Clas-sical) written language.

The Egyptian system of graphic determinatives enables us to state that the Egyptians distinguished the root morpheme from the auxiliary morpheme, and full-semantic word-forms from their substitutes—pronouns. The Egyptian thought did not imply abstracting basic categories, namely the substantive and the verb, both notions being not so far abstracted as to lead to elaborating two opposing general determinatives. The reason of the phenomenon is probably concealed in the Egyptian mode of thinking, though it might be also maintained by the morphological phenomena themselves : the principles of verb and noun morpho-logical differentiation being utterly unlike the Indoeuropean languages, where it seems to be more obvious than in Egyptian. It goes without saying in any case, that in the long run, along with other graphical methods, the Egyptian system of graphical determination somehow also compensated for a phonological under-development of the writing system's means which were based primarily on the consonantal (and sonantic) skeleton of the root morpheme.7 Indeed, there are

various ways to investigate the Egyptian writing system, but the semantic one appears to be the most fruitful, if we want not only to understand the system as a whole, but find the right way into the Egyptian mode of mentality. It is this approach that was recognized as most fruitful by our late great master of Egyp-tology, Yu. Ya. Perepiolkin.

Through lack of special graphemes for vowel representation, the Egyptian writing system conceals many features of morphology, which are partially re-construçtable from a pool of various data. In written Egyptian we have but hints to the real morphological structure, and first of all, markers of gender and number. All stems constituing N S differentiated them. But while St s is quite independent of its position and function, St q,ag differentiates gender and num-ber when occupying the second or third position in the NS, and that only in Old Egyptian (OE). In the first position there is no grammatical congruence •with the second constituent St s, and St q,ag look as if they were sg.m. It is indeed not excluded, that we have here a peculiar use of (proto-)masculine sg., which is to be taken into account when analysing Egyptian gender and number markers.8 The quality-verb-stems being present, the NS with St q is hard to

distinguish from the verbal sentence9—this peculiarity might show the

active-ergative typology of OE and ME.10 The other NS features pertaining to the old

stage of the Egyptian language development (i.e. OSE, comprising OE and M E ) are: basic patterns X pw ( = Y ) and X pw Y , the pattern Y X pw being

7 H. C. rteTpoBCKHii, 3 B y K 0 B u e 3naKH ermieTCKoro i w c b M a K a n CHCTeina, Moscow 1978.

See also P. Vernus, L'écriture hiéroglyphique: une écriture duplice?, and the literature cited there, in: Confrontations, Cahiers 16, Autumne 1986 — an offprint kindly present-ed by its author.

8 See also: F. Aspesi, La distinzione dei generi nel nome anticoegiziano e semitico, Flo-rence 1977.

9 A. C. H e T B e p y x i i H , Teopna β τβκοτοΛοπικ eruneTCKOro ημθηηογο npeanoJKemiH. I V .

CiicTeMaTH3aijHH Mcueaeîi eruneTCKOro ημθηηογο n p e j . i o w e H H H (in p r i n t ) .

Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence 7 the rarest one;'1 using of Pr pers and dem as constituents of NS paradigm com-bining with each other (see below) ; a plenty of patterns with actualizing parti-cles1'-, etc., the X and Y being constituents (principal members) of NS. The com-mon logic-grammatical analysis of some of these patterns has been made pre-viously.13 The absence of any explicit system of grammatical determination (not to be confused with the graphical determination above!) in the written OSE should also be taken into consideration.1/1

Speaking of the NS constituents, it should be remembered that St q,ag as the second constituent originally agreed in gender (perhaps both in gender and number) with the first constituent—St s. This phenomenon was no longer pro-ductive towards the end of OE.15 Thus a formal dissociation appeared between NS and the attributive non-predicative syntagmata. This correlates with the formation of NS with an invariable logic-grammatical subject pw: the pronomi-nal form is, in fact, fossilized in m.sg. (sf. above on the congruence of first con-stituent of the NS), though somewhat earlier the demonstrative of "the -w-series" was yet variable, originally agreeing in gender and number with the X. Traces thereof can be found in the Pyramid Texts ( = PT).16 All the facts exhi-bit not only the formal dissociation between the NS constituents, but also the exceptional importance of the suprasegment means meeting the requirements for the sentence, the intonation in particular, a conclusion which seems inevi-table. And the second, not obvious, conclusion: a levelling of grammatical (not logic-grammatical!) predicate forms of St q,ag in accordance with that of sg.m. irrespective of its position in the NS structure. The impulse to such a generali-zation was given by the masculine form of the first NS constituent in patterns I St q,ag + 2 St s.

It is known that the attributive syntagm preserved the concord up to the later period of the Egyptian written language development. But an impression may arise, that ME shows a more consecutive agreement here than even OE. If we treat the problem in a purely linguistical way, leaving aside the written system, this statement seems wrong, being utterly against the trends of

histo-I histo-I Id., JIorHKO-rpaMMaTHiecKHÄ aHajiHS flByx CJIOWHMX KOHCTpyKUHft (PT 133 f H 586b), Π Π Η Π Η Κ Η Β X V I I / I L , 1983, 86-93. The patterns X Y are represented only in two cases: 1) both X and Y are attributive syntagmata, co-ordinated or not, or 2) X is Pr pers ind or interrogative pronoun.

12 Id., A K T Y A J I N 3 A T O P B I Β ΘΓΜΠΘΤΟΚΟΜ ΗΜΘΗΗΟΜ πρβ«πο>ΚΒΗΗΗ. To be published in

"IlaJie-CTHHCKHK CÔOpHHK" 3 1 .

13 Id., IIponcxo>K;ieHHe ermieTCKoro ΗΜΘΗΗΟΓΟ npeaiiOJKeHHH ΜΟΗΘΛΗ " M M H +

yKa3aTeJii>-Hoe MecTOMMeHHe", Π Π Η Π Η Κ Η Β X I I I . , 1977, 175—179; O rjiaBHHx i n e H a x

CTapoerH-NETCKORO ΗΜΘΗΗΟΓΟ NPEAJIOHIEHHH, Π Π Η Π Η Κ Η Β XIV/II., 1979, 259—265; C N H T A K C H -HECKAN ( F L Y M A N « YKAEATEJIBHORO ΜΘΟΤΟΗΜΘΗΗΗ pw Β C T A P O E M N E T C K O M ΗΜΘΗΗΟΜ npe«-JioweHHH, in: V D Í 158 [1981], 97-111; see also our fn. 1, 3, 9, 14, 19, 23, 25.

14 Id., JIorHKO-rpaMMaTHHecKHft npe«nnaT Β CTapoerwneTCKOM ΗΜΘΗΗΟΜ npeaJioHteHHH M

KaTeropmi n a f l e w a h aeTepMHHai(HH Β poacTBeHHux H3tiKax, flpeBHHñ η

cpeflHeeeKO-BUIT B O C T O K . HcTopnH, Φ Η Π Ο Ι Ι Ο Γ Η Η , Moscow 1 9 8 3 , 1 0 6 — 1 2 0 .

15 E. Edel, Altägyptische Grammatik, Bd. I - I I , Rome 1955, 1964, § 362-363, 632-633

( = E A G ) .

16 PT—The Old Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the main edition : K. Sethe. Die

altägypti-schen Pyramiden texte, 4 vols., Leipzig 1908—1922, also posthumously his: Überset-zung und Kommentar zu den altägyptisehen Pyramidentexten, 6 vols. Glückstadt— Hamburg 1935-1962.

8 A l e x a n d e r S. C h e t v e r u k h i n

rical development of the Egyptian language. Actually we have here an appa-rent extra-linguistic phenomenon: the economy in labour put into hewing, trimming and grinding of the stone surface, transportation of stone itself, and making hieroglyphs on it, especially in the Old Kingdom : each extra sign means a "superfluous" cubic capacity of wrought stone. As for the Egyptian writing system in its entirety, the principle of economy applied not only to the monu-mental kinds of writing—economy in signs, in order to save not so much the ma-terial, as time, shows itself also in the cursive kinds of writing where brief and defective spellings are often encountered. They may be divided into two main categories, the occasional, and the usual—the latter could be termed "univer-sally recognized abbreviations", e.g. rt instead of the current rmt (OE "man", ME "people", later again "man").17 It is the considerations of economy that lie

at the base of such graphical methods as haplography and writing in split co-lumns ; it is also the same reason that often enabled the scribe to write jsjh.t nb in place of j§lh.t nb.t, because in the abbreviation the marker of gender (.t) was graphically generalized—as early as in OE—both for the St s (js/h.t), and for the St q (rib.t), the original grammatical agreement being hidden by the spelling in question. The actual loss of fem. .t is to be postulated for a much later period than the OE. In later times a curiuos coincidence however took place: the misleading ("non-grammatical") spelling acquired the true content due to the actual fall of external morphological markers: first in St q,ag in attributive function, then also in St s, rudimentally kept only in steady word-combinations which then transformed into compound-forms. The rudimentary external morphological system, ever so much contracted as compared with that of Late Egyptian, sur-vived in Coptic, the general tendency showing a re-building of the Egyptian morphological markers system from the suffixional towards the prefixional one.

Nothing of the kind mentioned for more later periods took place in OSE con-sidering morphological treatment of the NS principal members. First of all, the absence of concord of 2 St q,ag with 1 St s is an evident fact of language18, not of

orthography, because it is very difficult to suppose that a grammatical marker was generalized in spelling according to St q,ag, while the same did not happen in the attributive syntagm. Second, this could not be a result of the loss of outer morphological markers, since it occurred much later. It is a tendency to formal disconnection of predicative and non-predicative (attributive) syntagmata that played the leading role, not the auslaut morphemic reduction above.

For the purposes of the following analysis let us separate the N S paradigm into two main groups, or generalized schemes :

The first scheme (I), where the second constituent is always pw (rarely tw and nw), and the first position can be substituted for any St or Pr.19

17 T h e principles of e c o n o m y observed in P T are traced t o in vol. III—TV of S e t h e ' s P T

edition, see our fn. 16.

18 A. H . Gardiner, E g y p t i a n Grammar, 2nd ed. L o n d o n 1950, § 1 3 5 - 1 3 7 , 3 7 3 - 3 7 4

( = G E G ) ; G. Lefebvre, Grammaire de l'égvptien classique. Cairo 1940, § 625, 632 ( = L G E C ) .

19 T h e peculiar usage of d e p e n d e n t p r o n o u n s as t h e first c o n s t i t u e n t is here eliminated

wj-Old E g y p t i a n Nominal Sentence 9

The second scheme (II) where both constituents are any St or Pr, that is the scheme with equally (or nearly so) substitutive constituents. Note that our "1" and "2" show the ordinal number of the constituent. It can be put down as follows :

I. 1 St s, q, ag (Pr pers ind/Pr dem) + ?m·;

II. 1 St s, q, ag (Pr pers ind/Pr dem) + + ) 2 St, s, q, ag (Prpers ind, dep/ The scheme II manifests itself in three ways (a special case with Pr dem, see below) :

A. 1 St s, q, ag + 2 Pr pers dep/ind Β. 1 Pr pers ind (+pw) + 2 St s, q, ag C. 1 Pr pers ind (+pw) + 2 Pr pers ind/dep,

wherein "( +pw)" denotes a quasi-optional character of Pr dem pw, acting in "I" as a real logic-grammatical subject and thus being the second constituent. In "II" (B.C.) pw became formal, so it is not (no more) a constituent here, but an auxiliary component. The dual of pronouns is rare and in any case irrelevant for the analysis. The scheme I. 1 Pr pers ind+ 2 pw may be represented as:

Here the following should be noted: In OE the "earlier" pronominal forms are mostly used, namely tw.t—st.t. The "pl.c." forms except I.e. are only imaginary as can be deduced from Afrasian comparative data. For OE an internal "u" for the masculine and "i" for the feminine in the suffixal and dependent Pr pers should probably be reconstructed, keeping in mind that the paradigm of Pr pers ind pi. (2. and 3. pers) consists of a morpheme nt 4- suffixal Pr pers, as the cor-responding forms of sg. A similar vocalization may with caution be proposed for the ME forms, where their drawing together may be expected. Their full convergence might have taken place somewhat later, the reason being a weak-ened position of the differentiating vowel. Note, that here, as above in the case of jsjh.t nb.t, there took place a graphical coincidence which can bring one to an utterly wrong conclusion concerning the OSE grammatical structure. Actually, both cases are a result of graphical "generalization". The "early" Pr pers ind variant tw.t—st.t is of the same origin as the Akkadian independent direct-ob-ject and genitive Pr pers.20 The morph nt of the Pr pers ind is perhaps related,

R e i h e als Pi'oklitikon im adverbiellen Nominalsatz, in: ZÄS 112 [1985], 94—104, bes. 103: „Zusammenfassend kann danach festgestellt werden, daß die besprochene Satz-konstruktion sw sdm.f etc. — o b als Nebensatz, als Charakterisierung, als direkte R e d e oder als K o n t i n u a t i v gebraucht — stets nur in abhängiger Weise verwendet wird . . . Obwohl also das als E r s t n o m e n fungierende Personalpronomen der icj-Reihe satzein-leitend verwendet wird und als proklitisch zu bezeichnen ist, kann es dennoch nicht wie das Personalpronomen der jnA-Reihe a m Anfang eines unabhängigen S a t z e s stehen".

20 I. M. D i a k o n o f f , Semito-Hamitic Languages, Moscow 1965, 72; I. J. Gelb, Sequential

R e c o n s t r u c t i o n of Proto-Akkadian, Chicago 1969, Chap. 9.

Pr dem). Sg-1. c. jnk pw P I . 2. m. tw.tjnt.k pw 2. f. tm.tlnt.t pw 3. m. sw.tjnt.f pw 3. f. st.tint.s pw 1. c. inn/jnn pw 2. c. nt.tn pw 3. c. nt.sn pw

10 Alexander S. Chetverukhiii

on the one hand, to a hypothetic lexeme with the meaning of "existence" and, on the other hand, to a deictic base, both being presumably of the same origin, cf. EAG § 174.21 In addition, it is very likely that in Pr pers ind the morpheme nt

formerly had a relative pronoun function, so that the Egyptian paradigm might be comparable with that of Ge'ez independent personal possessive pronouns form-ed after pattern "relative pronoun + personal suffix". The morph nt lies at the base of the relative pronouns nt.j (m.) and nt(.j).t (f.), being also represent-ed as "independent" demonstrative nt in ME N S nt piv . . . - G E G § 190,2 ("it is the fact that . . .") ; LGEC § 616 ("c'est le fait que . . .").22

The main difference between the " I " and " I I . A " is in the character of the se-cond constituent, both being absolutely comparable with the English "This/It ( = Y ) is X " and " H e ( = Y ) is X"—it is worth remembering, that the Egyptian word-order is, as a rule, the inverse of that in the Indo-European languages: Eg. X Y = I.—E. Y X . The 2 Pr pers is usually represented by Pr pers dep, though the Pr pers ind is also possible as early as in OE: P T 703 b Ν 701 : Ν pwtw.t "You are N " .

The scheme II.Β is realized in the PT, although the jm'-variant is less frequent as in the ME texts :

St s can also be represented by word-combinations (groups), sometimes very expanded, where a nuclear component (St s proper) is extended by different kinds of attributes.23 The Pr pers ind often substitutes for 1 St s + pw. This is

evident from parallel texts in the P T and the texts-corrections : P T 1094 a, b ; 1097 a - c ; 1098a; 1161c etc. With pw: P T 703b Ν 701: tw.t pw Pjpj "You are P y o p e " ; P T 10&6a: sw.t pw Hr(w) ntr.w "The Horus of (the) gods is he", cf. the old versions of P T 1066a and 1035b—c, containing the patterns "jnk + nw

+ St ag". The nw-function here seems to be a double one: 1) as the formal logic-grammatical subject, and 2) as a substantivizer before St ag. It is hard to say, what function is the predominant one. In any case they seem to be less current than those with pw.

The II.C is represented by still more seldom occurrences noted by M. Gilula2'1,

and can be demonstrated in the following way :

21 See also: Α. Π. IOjiaKHH, Pa3BHTHe CTpyKTypw npeaJiOHieHHH β cbíi3h c pa3BWTneM CTpyn-TypH MMCJiH, Moscow 1984, 116 and chap. 5; A. C. MeTBepyxHH, Pea:iH3amiH h cmhcji

KBaHTopa an3HCTeHUnajibH0CTH b CTpyKType ernneTCKoro npe«Jio>KeHHH (in print).

22 See also the following Α . H . Gardiner's articles: The Relative Adjective ntj, in: Pro-ceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology ( = P S B A ) 22 [1900], 37-42; Notes: (1) jwtj and ntj. (2) The Demonstrative η and its Derivatives, in : P S B A 22 [1900], 321-325. 23 Examples see in Callender's work and in K . Sethe, Der Noniinalsatz im Ägyptischen

und Koptischen, Leipzig 1916 ( = S N Ä K ) , § 59, 63, 68.

-'· S. I. Groll, Non-Verbal Sentence Patterns in Late Egyptian, London 1967, e.g. p. 30— 33 ( " T h e "ink B " pattern"). 1. c. jnn( + pw) = St s, q, ag 2. c. nt.tn+ St s, q. ag P I . 2. m. tw.t/nt.k +St s, q, ag 2. f. tm.tjnt.t + St s, q, ag 3. m. sw.tjnt.f+ St s, q, ag 3. f. st.tjnt.s + St s, q, ag 3. c. ni.sn + St s, q, ag

Old E g y p t i a n N o m i n a l Sentence 11

Sg. Pl.

2. m. tw.tlnt.k + a,nv of the Pr pers „ , , . , 2. f. }m.tl«t.t + any of the Pr pers 2" C" »<-<»(+the same)

3. m. sw.t¡nLf + any of the Pr pers s w ( + t h e s a m e )

3. f. st.t¡nt.s + any of the Pr pers v

The examples can be excerpted from ME on, mostly from the CT and the B D :

jnk pw sj st.t pw wj (CT.VII.157b-c) "She ( = "the Eye of Horus") is me, (and) I

am she" ; CT.IV.99h: jnk pw st.t pw tz phr "It is I/me, It is she, (and) vice versa", i.e. "I am she, she is I(me)", or "I and she—it is just the same", quite analogous to B D 64 (Nebseni) nt.f pw jnk pw tz phr "It is he, it is I—vice versa" = SNÄK 97, η. 1. In ME Pr pers ind are used as the second constituent more readiliy than Pr pers dep. Later patterns do not contain pw at all, see Gilula's article, p. 173:

jnk nt.k; jnk (m)nt(w).f; (m)nt.f (m)nt.k tz phr ; nt.f nt.k—a, construction current

in Late Egyptian.

The material concerning N S with the Pr dem as the first constituent is at-tested much less. In PT there is an allusion to using forms of pronominal demon-strative series in -n (pn, tn, nn) as the first constituent in the pattern, compris-ing also a demonstrative in -w {pw, tw, nw), with both the intercoordination of two Pr dem in gender and number, and the actualizing particle hm between t h e m - P T 1643 c: SNÄK § 89. To the end of OSE the demonstrative pi as the first constituent was also possible, see Roeder, op. cit., p. 52—53. The demon-strative pw as the first constituent was also possible in an interrogative NS, see

EAG § 1010 ; GEG § 497 ; LGEC § 680.

It is plain that this function of pw is a secondary one, and, against E. Edel,

I.e., pw is not "ein offenbar auch sehr altes Fragewort" at all. A mechanism of

the phenomenon is quite elementary. The interrogative N S with initial pw is a simple inversion of our schemes I and II : X pw. -*pw X?, X pw Y. -~pw X Y? The inversion originally was used in constructing the totality (general, nexus) ques-tion, such a transformation being universal and trivial. The first position being that of the rheme, pw bore the main logic-grammatical and semantical stress. It is clear, that then the construction like "Is it X?" could convert into "What/ Who is X?", while "it" becomes an abstract indication. So, "Is it X ? " - "What (kind of/for a(n)) X ? " - " W h a t / W h o is X?". Hence the example from EAG § 1010: CT.II.290e: pw sw j'qj "Wer ist er, der da eintritt?" structurally reflects an original "Ist es/das er, der da eintritt?". Here we have a notable instance of transforming the nexus question (perhaps originating in its turn from that affirm-ative, or rhetorical "It is X, isn't it?") into the subjective one. Thus a convert-ing of Pr dem into Pr interrogative can be traced. This phenomenon undoubt-edly correlates to pw becoming formal in the affirmative NS, being expressed by the loss of its agreement, see above.

Apart from the demonstratives in -w as the second constituent, the forms nn25

25 A. C. HeTBepyxHH, OyHKUHH CTapoernneTCKHx yKaeaTejibHtix MecroHMeHHtt β

coie-TâHHH pw-p(w)-nn Ha MaTepnane TeKCTOB nnpaMH^, § 1 6 7 a, Π Π η Π Η Κ Η Β X V / I ( 2 ) , 1 9 8 1 , 9 3 - 9 8 .

12 Alexander S. Cliet vcrukbin and even n/i-c are also possible, see, e.g., PT 1616 a, 423c, 741c, 128a. The internal ("inserted between") pw is also used here. The material being very sparse, it would be of no use to make a special scheme. The following nevertheless should be noted: The forms of Pr dem in -i and -n function as the first constituent; Pr dem in -n, -w and -/ can be observed in the position of the second constituent. Cf.EAG § 187: PT 142c W: msj(.w) n.k pf, jwr(.w) n.k pn "geboren ist dir jener, empfangen ist dir dieser", that can be treated as a NS (as the German Zustands-passiv, therewith the passage is translated by E. Edel). Here we have a case marginal between nominal and verbal sentences (see also A. Yudakin's work, our fn. 21). A suggestion imposes itself, that the least condition for making such NS patterns was "not to bring together" two Pr dem of the same series, i.e., simultaneously as the first and as the second constituent, the phenomenon being perhaps a "language universal" through the very semantical value of such a predicative construction, wherein "This is this" would be hardly expect-ed in a real speech of two persons, cf. "Der ist das/es", "C'est cela/ça" with Egyptian pS pw (Roeder, op. cit., p. 52: pRhind 60 "Das ist es", and p. 45: RecTrav 39,121: pi pw Wsjr "Der ist es, Osiris"). A disconnective function of an actualizing particle is felt if we take PT 1643 c (tn hm tw . . .). By the way, the formal logic-grammatical subject pw in a trimembral NS acquires also, by its very position, along of its main functions, a disconnective one somehow akin to that of actualizing particles.

As it was previously demonstrated, it could be an indication of a tendency of the logical stress strenghtening of the first constituent via putting in pw, if the first constituent was represented only by one word-form.27 Pw, as far as it may be observed, had, as a minimum, a triple function: at the logic-grammatical level of syntactic analysis it was a formal logic-grammatical subject; at the semantic level it often was an "equation-sign" ("one and the same as"); at the formal structural level it functioned as a mere copula. Other possible approaches to

pw are in close dependence on what level (or sub-level) of syntactic analysis, or

what kind of theoretical method is chosen by the investigator, cf. e.g., Groll, op. cit., passim, where she orientates herself to the rules of grammatical deter-mination applied to Late Egyptian with its developed system thereof.

As to the Pr pers in the function of the first or second NS constituent, it is obvious that without directly expressed dependence on the previous sentence, the first position is always replaced by a Pr pers ind, not dep, see Barta's article above. We have not come across the Pr pers dep as the first constituent of PT NS, where its absence can be a result of a peculiar style dictated by the common context. In any case, it was imposiible to say *wj pw, but only jnk pw "this/It is I/me", the Pr pers ind acting usually as a logic-grammatical predicate, while the Pr pers dep—as a logic-grammatical subject, never as predicate.

All the above remarks considered, let us proceed to our schemes. Now, if 26 SNÄK § 88: Lebensmüder 37: jx.t nj n(.j).t hn(j).t „eine Stätte zum Niederlassen ist

jenes" nämlich des Jenseits . . . Die Stellung des Demonstrativums ist dieselbe wie bei pw".

27 A. C. MeTBepyxHH, B3anMoaeficTBHe aormiecKoro yaapeHHH » φορΜ3.πι>ιιθΓθ πογηκο-rpaMMaTHHecKoro noA.iewainero β CTapoernneTCKOM ημθηηομ npe^nowernni, TJpeBimft η cpeÄHeBeKOBtiö Boctok. MeropHH, φιυιο.ιοΓΗΗ, Moscow 1983, 88—105.

Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence 13 we take the common scheme II in its full according to positional substitution, Pr generalized on all the pronouns but pw, we get the following paradigm : 1. a. Pr ( + pu>) + Pr 3. a. St ag (+jnc) + Pr b. Pr ( + pw) + St s b. St ag ( + pw) -f St s c. Pr ( + pw) + St ag c. St ag ( +pw) + St ag d. Pr ( + pw) + St q d. St ag ( +pw) + St q 2. a. St s (+pw) + Pr 4. a. St q (+pu;) + Pr b. St s ( + pw) + St s b. St q (+pu;) + St s c. St s ( + pw) + St ag c. St q ( +pw) + St ag d. St s (+pu>) + St q d. St q (+pw;) + St q

We have already used this scheme. It was elaborated on the base of NS ma-terial in the PT, see our second article mentioned in fn. 11. It is worth repeat-ing here the summrepeat-ing-up observations on a supply for every item of the scheme : 1. a: represented outside of the PT; 1. b—2. d: represented in both realizations (with and without pw) in and outside of the PT; 3. a: in the PT without pw; 3. b: in both realizations; 3.c—d: lacking; 4.£L·—b: only without pw; 4.c—d: lack-ing.

In the above article we analyzed mainly the pw presence/absence, and show-ed that this phenomenon, as well as the main function of pw, became evident only due to the logic-grammatical method, the trimembral predicative construc-tions resulting as a rule from a superposition of two bimembral ones : 1 St s + 2 St s, ag, q, and 1 St s (ag, q) + 2 pw. Such a superposition is a linguistic fré-quentation irrespective of language typology, and, as to the NS, is irrelative of presence and character of the copula in any given language. It is the lack of real data for points 3.c—d and 4.c—d in the above scheme that aroused an impulse to seek another way of studying the NS, putting aside for a while our logic-gram-matical method, all the more since the constructions implied by the items in question are very hard to be imagined in any real spoken language. The latter makes it clear that the problem requires detailed theoretical linguistic discus-sion.

It seems likely that a new approach should be looked for somewhere at the intersection of the "level of revealing some types of real sense relations between the constituents of an utterance, based on using . . . a system of terms : a) a bear-er of charactbear-eristics or its producbear-er. . . and b) a denomination or designation of characteristics . . . The second principal member of the utterance character-izes the bearer of a quality or producer of a characteristics . . ."28, and the "level of analysis comprising . . . principal sentence members—the subject and pred-icate"29. Regarding our problem, both levels appear to draw together at this point, and just in defining the deep semantical structure, for it is here that "the function of grammatical subject is always peculiar to a word with common mean-ing of presentivity (the "word" originatmean-ing from the category of the substantive or its pronominal equivalents) or a word occasionally "presentived" (substanti-28 M. M. ryxMaH, II03HIJHH nojyiemamero Β naiiKax paannqHux: ΤΗΠΟΒ, in: ΗΉΘΗΗ

npen-JioweHHH Β HBHKax pasjiHiHux ΤΗΠΟΒ, Leningrad 1972, 19—35, eep. p. 21.

14 Alexander S. C'liot verukhiii vized) in any other way . . ."3 0. It is precisely from this stand-point that the

functions of constituents were previously estimated by S.O. Kartsevsky and A. de Groot31, the subject function being described as "an absolutely

attribut-ed" one. The following definition by N. D. Arutiunova is also proper hereto3-:

"The subject and predicate have different functions in the sentence: the subject and other terms of presentive meaning substitute, in speech, for the real object, which they have to identify for the communication addressee, i.e. act in their denotative function, while the topic, aiming at communication formation, real-izes only its significative (abstract, notional) contents, or sense . . . The rates of word combinability in subject word-ordering are akin to regularities adjusting the word junction with the help of predicative relation: in both cases the attrib-utive adjunct is connected with the denotatum of a noun, not with its signifi-catum". And, at last, the semantical correlation of the subject and predicate contents in the OSE NS is quite in accordance with Ε. I. Shutova's definitions33:

". . . the subject denotes the item (object) about which some characteristics are stated by the predicate. This is a general linguistic, universal, content of the subject category in any language . . . The predicate is a principal member (con-stituent) signifying some characteristics stated in regard to the given item denoted by the subject. (This is) a general linguistic, universal, content of the predicative category as a bearer of characteristics . . .".

Thus, such a general theoretical explanation of the subject (S) function as that of an absolutely attributed, and of the predicate (P) function a« a preposi-tional attributing, can best do for the paradigm above, especially in regard to the absence of material on items 3.c—d ; 4.c—d. Hence we obtain a deep-semantical definition of the sentence as an attributive syntagm, self-content for making (or being perceived as) a separate communication-act. To be sure, predicative attrib-utive relations are to be treated much wider than non-predicative-the fact virtually underlined by A. de Groot and O. S. Kartsevsky critics (06mee

h3h-K03HaHHe, p. 329; Arutiunova, op. cit., p. 11—13). Nevertheless, the

non-predi-cative syntagm can be converted into the basis of that predinon-predi-cative—the fact quite observable in the OE, be it NS, or the possessive conjugation forms. The mul-tiformity of predicative attributive forms depends directly on grammatical (first of all—morpho-syntactical) peculiarities of a language—ranging from the mere juxtaposition, set in a certain order, in a language of the isolating type, up to the most complicated theoretically possible systems of co-ordination in a language of that polysynthetic. Back to the OSE, here even an elementary survey of data unequivocally reveals a close relation between the attributive and pre-dicative syntagmata becoming then disconnected.

Here it is worth nothing that the semantical inversion could occur in a num-ber of cases, e.g. in the sentence type with the constituent pw : the non-predi-cative attributing member changed into the predinon-predi-cative attributed constituent-it is just the case wconstituent-ith the scheme I : a non-predicative (for example, "this eye", where "this" is a non-predicative attribute) when used as a sentence, under-3 0 Ο. ΓΙ. CyHiiH, OGman Teopim 'lacTeii pe^H, Moscova- — Leningrad, 1966, 94—96.

31 Oómee H3HK03naniie. BiiyrpeHHHH CTpyKTypa R3bii;a, Moscow 1972, ¡129.

32 H . Apynonona, IIpej.iO/KeiiHe h ero cmhcji, Moscow 1 9 7 6 , 1 0 — 1 1 . 33 E. II. LLlyToua, Bonpocu Teopnw ciiUTaKCHCa, Moscow 1984, 120.

Old Egyptian Nominai Sentence 15 went transformation into "this (is an) eye", where "this (is)" is no more an attribute, quite the reverse, "(an) eye", becomes a predicative attribute to "this": "what's this?", "what does this characterize?", the "characteristics" being "(an) eye".

To the end of the OE, Pr dem "this", in syntagm like "this eye", in predi-cative use (being converted into "this is an eye") disagreed in gender (and in number) with the St s, and therewith a formal difference between non-predicative and predicative syntagmata was fixed, the Pr dem in -w in the masculine singu-lar, namely pw, getting immutable in predicative use. An analogous "grammati-cal transmutation" from the non-predicative to the predicative syntagm should be postulated for the forms of possessive conjugation—sdm.f, sdm.n.f, etc., espe-cially when "nomina actionis" are their basis34, something like "his hearing" — "he is (he's!) hearing". However, the transformation is not always indispensably accompanied by semantical inversion—as to our Ν S paradigm, there is no inver-sion at points l.c—d; 2.c—d, though formal concord was also lost here.

In any case, on the level of deep semantics the problem of constituents' func-tion at points l.a and 2.b is probably unsolvable if the paradigm be taken as a whole irrespective of every particular case. It is the way already gone by : try-ing to define functions of constituents at point 2.b, some authors paid their at-tention to the lexical meaning of constituents, the estimation and the compar-ison of constituental semantical extents, and to foundating a semantical clas-sification of O S E N S S thereupon. This is a well-known approach, undoubtedly justified and based on vast linguistic data.3 5 The vulnerability of the method is in inevitable subjectiveness while estimating the constituental semantic volume, especially in operating with such pairs of the constituents, in which both of them, the first constituent and the second one, express some abstract notions. As concerns our O S E material the vulnerability grows to a large degree owing to our ignorance in plenty of notions that came from antiquity, especially if the material is borrowed of mortuary and religious texts, very rich in N S S . All things considered, the semantic method's effectiveness conformably to the PT, CD and B D is reduced to its minimum.

Strange and inexplicable a discord may seem, namely that between 2.a, where the subject occupies the end of NS, and 2.c—d, where it takes the initial position. Trying to solve the problem, we don't see any possibility other than to re-apply to the logic-grammatical method, akin to related methods named as "actual division of the sentence", "functional perspective of an utterance", "informa-tion-bearing structural analysis of the sentence", or "analysis of utterance into theme and Theme"3·3, etc.

The universally recognized pioneer of the logical analysis application to Egyp-tian Kurt Sethe was, keeping in mind his famous "Der Nominalsatz im

Ägyp-3/1 W. Schenkel, Die altägyptische Suffixkonjugation, Wiesbaden 1975, passim. 35 See the work of Arutiunova above, fn. 32, and fn. 9.

3(1 Dictionary of Slavonic Linguistic Terminology, vol. 1, Prague 1977, 467; O. C. AxMaHOBa,

CjioBapb jnmrBHCTHHecKHX TepMiiHOB, Moscow 1969, 37; B. E. IIIeBHKOBa, CoepeMeHHUit aHrilllflCKllii H3LJK. ΠορΗΑΟΚ CjlOB, aKTyaJIbHOe HJieHeHHe, HHTOHaiJHH, Moscow 1980, passim; Β. M. Co.iHijeB (pe«.), Βοοτοηηοθ H3tiK03HaHne. rpaMMaranecKoe h arayajib-Hoe HJieiieiiiie npeaJiOJKemm, Moscow 1984, passim, and the literature cited therein.

16 Alexander S. Chetverukhin tischen und Koptischen" (Leipzig 1916) that has not up to now lost its signifi-cance, though the method has been continually improved by egyptologists engaged with syntactic analysis, mostly in recent years, see the article beginning. The method is not indeed devoid of cases of its own shortcomings, but from the logic-grammatical standpoint there is in no case a functional "lack of co-ordination" at points generalized under 2, since the logic-grammatical predicate tends to hold the initial position (l.b—d; 2.a, c—d; 3.a—b; 4.a—b) at least in the OE, t h a t was guaranteed also by use of pw—&n "organizer" of a strict logic-grammatical model allowing no redistribution of logic-grammatical functions between two constituents. Only having taken for the starting-point Sethe's stands, one can understand that Pr pers ind functions in OSE as logic-grammatical predicate par excellence, while P r pers dep—as subject exclusively. This results also from comparing such NSS as jnk pw, jnk pw tw, jnk pw tw.tjni.k (never *wj pw, etc.), which are partly at hand, partly certainly reconstructable. The further investi-gation is impossible without proper taking in account the different role of actu-alizing particles and other means of the kind, the logical stress mobility, the historical development of the logic-grammatical structure, and some other related problems.

Now, if ever, it is totally impossible to give simple definitions of subject and predicate at points l.a and 2.b, for "in the identity-sentence the subject and the predicate can be defined to such extent, to which one of the constituents represents something like temporal embodiment, or "presentative state", of an object, and is formed, or may be formed, with predicative instrumental. In the strict and proper sense of the term, the sentence of denotative identity, i.e. the identity-sentence, is deprived of the subject and predicate, though it may be divided in theme and rheme" (Arutiunova, op. cit., p. 325)—of course, only the spoken realization can fully satisfy the requirements of "the theme-rheme ana-lysis". Only eligible context, or familiar situation with all the notions under-standable, resp. the perfect knowledge of proper suprasegment means (into-nations, peculiarities of logical stress, pauses)—better all together—can give as-surance about the logic-grammatical division of such sentences as 2.b, if there are no additional explicit ("infrasegment") markers of its logic-grammatical structure like jr, jn and pw, or actualizing particles like js, etc.37

The statement wouldn't be full, if we side-stepped the problem of structure in a system of coincidence/divergence of logic-grammatical and deep-semantical constituental positions in our praradigm. If one considers it able to accept the logic-grammatical predicate in the OSE tending to stay in the initial position

(by the way, bot only in the NS), so in l.a—d of the paradigm the positions of semantic (deep-structural) S and Ρ diametrically diverge except for the doubt-ful l . a ; in 2.a they concure; in 2.b it is not clear; in 2.c—d they diverge; in 3.a—b and 4.a—b they coincide. I t is the core of the phenomenon t h a t is to be explain-ed now. We have therefore two equivocal cases spoken above, five divergences ( — ), and also five coincidences ( + ), i.e. an absolutely symmetrical system :

I) l . b . P r ( + ^ ) + S t s ( - ) : 2.a. St a ( + î w ) + P r ( + );

37 N o w we are just writing about some actualizing particles. See also A. Shisha-Halevy,

('l)rf in the Coffin Texts: Functional Tableu in: Journal of the American Oriental

Old Egyptian Nominal Sentence 17 II) I.e. Pr(+2Mü) + S t a g ( - ) : 3.a. St ag + 0 + P r ( + );

I I I ) l.d. Pr (+î>u») + St q ( - ) : 4.a. St q + 0 + P r ( + ); IV) 2.C. St s (+pu7) + St ag ( - ) : 3.b. St ag (+jMf) + St s ( + ); V) 2.d. St s ( - f - ^ + St q ( - ) : 4.b. St q + 0 + S t s ( + )!

The final remark on pw: the scheme shows t h a t if there is no divergency bet-ween the two levels, the use of pw is totally superfluous, but if the divergency is regular, its use is quite possible. Such is the common tendency.

Clearly the system does show how the very Egyptian grammatical structure (position + special morphology of personal pronouns) reflects the logical ture of the sentence, namely the presence of a special logic-grammatical struc-ture, apparent not in form of "supersystem" (expressed exlusively by supra-segment means) but as "a subsystem within the system". This is not amazing at all how things similar to the above system are represented in a lot of lan-guages of the world.38

Here it is worth saying about a frequently used term "focus", or "focussing", having a very vague meaning, as it is noted by some authors39. We are under

the impression t h a t this term means the result of a logical stress shift, and, though not obligatory, structural changes provoked therewith, the volume of the term ranging from a mere sense stress shift up to the full reorganization of the syntactic structure under the influence of the context over the communi-cation-act.

We would offer the following (structural-logic-semantical) definition: in all cases where a divergency between the logic-grammatical and deep-semantical positions of the constituents arises, no matter, be it a result of the context re-quirements or even speaker's will for the sake of expressiveness, if the divergency leads to the full or partial rebuilding of the formal structure of the sentence—this phenomenon should be called "focus", or "focussing". From this view-point items l.b—d; 2.c-d are "focussed", and 2.a; 3 . a - b ; 4.a—b are "normal".

Summing-up note: Hereby we should underline the exclusive general theo-retical significance of NS research. Its compactness and structural harmony per-mit to trace those structural features of the syntax which are not otherwise ac-cessible. The NS study can also verify some suggestions previously made with-out considering the NS data. When studying the Egyptian NS, a great deal of various data should be taken into account, some of them being quite "extra-linguistic" ones. The more heterogeneous they are, the better.

38 B. 3. IIaH$njioB, BsaHMoneftcTBiie H3HK21 H MHINJIEHUH, Moscow 1971, 219 CJI.; E. A. Kpett*

Η Ο Β Η Ί , HCCJIENOBAHHH H M a T e p a a J i t i no K > K a r H p c K O M y H 3 t i K y , Leningrad 1982, 175ff.

39 Janet H.Johnson, "Focussing" on Various "Themes", in: Crossroad, p. 401—410. Cf.

also C. J. Eyre, Approaches to the Analysis of Egyptain Syntax: Syntax and Pragma-tics, ibid., p. 119—143; Schenkel Fokussierung, passim.

Addendum to fn. 3

In: H B U K Β ΑφρπκΘ: JIHHTBHCTH^ecKne npoßjieMii coepeueHHott ΑφρκκΗ, Moscow 1988, qacn. II, 35—41.