Sohag University
Faculty of Arts
Egyptology Department
et
- and the Qualitative form
in Coptic language
Prepared By
Walid El Sayed Abd El Rahim
Student of Egyptology
Pre-Master degree
Supervision
Dr. Ahmad El Ansary
Professor of Egyptian Language (Philology)Sohag university
introduction
The Verb in Coptic language
. Coptic possesses two fundamental forms of the verb: Infinitive and
Qualitative. With the help of the auxiliaries, all the necessary tenses of the verb can be formed from the Infinitive . The Qualitative is restricted in use to a few tenses only . The Infinitive may be said to express a verbal action , which in
Transitive Verbs passes to an object and in Intransitive Verbs affects the subject initiating the action.
The Qualitative may be said to express the condition or state resulting from a
verbal action .
The Infinitive. In point of fact the Infinitive is a verbal noun and may show
either a masculine or a feminine form, though syntactically it is always treated as a masculine substantive. As a general rule the masculine form ends in a consonant and favors an
o
sound for its formative vowel; e.g.bwl
‘Toloose’,
mou6
(formw6
, ) ‘To fill’,swtm-
‘To hear’. Feminine forms end ine
, and favora
ori
as the formative vowel; e.g.mise
‘To give birth to’,ra4e
‘To rejoice’. But some infinitives ending ine
are really masculine, their original final radical having fallen away; e.g.4wpe
‘To become’ from original xpr;rw6e
‘To wash’ from original .Meaning. The Infinitive can express an active or a passive sense
e.g.
ouwn
‘To open’ or ‘To be opened’,tako
‘To destroy’ or ‘To be destroyed’,ta`ro
‘To make strong’ or ‘To be strengthened’. WithIntransitive verbs the Infinitive expresses an action without a direct object,
e.g.
6wn
‘To come near’; or it denotes the beginning of a condition orcircumstance, e.g.
56e
‘To become drunken’.Forms. The Infinitive may have Absolute, Construct and Pronominal forms
e.g.
bwl
,bel
-,bol
= ‘To loose’;solsl-
,sl-sl-
-,sl-swl-
= ‘Tocomfort’;
The Qualitative
The Qualitative. The Qualitative originated from the Perfective form in Old
Egyptian. In most verbs it has no special ending, being derived from the 3 masc sing of the Old Perfective that ended originally in the weak semi-consonant , which was lost at an early period (in hieroglyphic texts it is more often omitted than written). Occasionally, however, the ending
t
is attached to the stem;e.g.
smont
Qualitative ofsmine
‘To establish’,`raeit
(also`oor
) Qual of`ro
‘To become strong’,tntont
(alsotntwn
) Qual oftontn
‘To become like’. This ending, which is more often found in Bohairic,
Note: Not all verbs have a Qualitative form; e.g.
`nou
‘To ask’,`w
‘Tosay’,
4ipe
‘To be ashamed’,mou6
‘To look’, etc. It would appear thatmany verbs which have no Qual had also lost the power to form Construct and
Pronominal forms.
A few verbs have lost all their forms with the exception of the Qualitative, which is then used as an Infinitive; e.g.
a6e
‘To stand’,bost
‘To be dry’,kiwou
‘To be fat’,sht
‘To be fat’,s2ra6t
‘To rest’,4oueit
‘To beempty’,
6loulwou
‘To be high’,6moos
‘To sit’,6oou
‘To be putrid orwicked’,
`oor
(e
) ‘To be strong’.Meaning. In contrast to the Infinitive, the Qualitative indicates the result of a verbal action,
the effect or state produced by an action, the quality which it finally produces. In contrast to the Infinitive of Intransitive verbs, it suggests the permanent character of the verbal action effected. It might almost be said to suggest a neuter sense; e.g.
tamio
‘To make’ Qualtamihu
‘To be created’,kmom
‘To become black’ Qual
khm
‘To be black’.Note:
nhu
, which is employed as the Qual ofei
‘To come’, is commonly usedto express a future sense ‘To be in the act of coming’; e.g.
3
.nhu gar ebol
n-.6ht
.e n-2i ou
.6hgoumenos
‘For a prince will come out of thee’ (lit. He is in the act of coming out of thee, namely a prince; Mt 2:6).As the Qualitative expresses the meaning of state or quality, it can with the relative particle supply the deficiency of adjectives in Coptic; e.g.
nei+
.tafos et
.`h6
‘These white-washed tombs’ (lit. These tombs whichare smeared/whitened),
p
.p\n\a\ et
.ouaab
‘The Holy Spirit’ (lit. The Spiritwho [is] holy). In verbal sentences the Qual can only be used with the auxiliaries of I and II Present and Imperfect.
Note: In Crum's Coptic Dictionary, Qualitative forms are indicated by means
of the dagger (
†
). In this grammar, the abbreviation Qual or Q is adopted toavoid confusion with the letter
5
.With Defined Antecedent: When the antecedent is defined, the particle
et
- is used to link the relative clause to the word it qualifies.The relative clause follows the construction of an ordinary statement, the
particle
et
- indicating its syntactical function.et
- is used to introduce the relative clauses making an affirmative statementwhen the subject of the relative clause is the same as the antecedent. Note:
This rule does not apply in the case of affirmative statements which contain the Imperfect or Tense of Habitude), or the Perfect tense . The use of
et
- and the Qualitative is particularly common in forming the equivalent of adjectives or participles;e.g.
p
.p\n\a\ et
.ouaab
‘The Holy Spirit’ (lit. The Spirit who [is] Holy),p.4hn et.rht 6i`n- m-.ma n-.6ate ‘The tree sprouting beside the water channels’ (Ps 1:3).
(a)
et
-Present Tense; e.g.naiat
.ou n-
.n-
.bal et
.nau
‘Blessed (are)the eyes which see’ (Lk 10:23).
(b)
et
-Future Tense; e.g.pai+ et
.na
.moone m-
.pa
.laos
‘This onewho will shepherd my people’ (Mt 2:6).
(c)
et
-Old Conjugation ; e.g.p
.mhh4e et
.na4w
.3
‘The crowd whichwas much’ (Lk 7:11).
(d)
et
-Adverbial Phrase; e.g.p
.koui et
.n-
.6ht
.ou
‘The little one who (is) in their midst’ (Lk 15:12),et
.m-mau
‘That one’As the Construct Form is used to express the Definite Article , in order to
express such a phrase as ‘That man’ a relative clause is employed:
et
.m-mau
‘Who (or which) is there’; e.g.p
.rwme et
.m-mau
‘That man’,n-
.Examples from Old Testament, Genesis