Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
(Neferti, Merikare, Berlin Lederrolle) 154 or the well-known ideological statements of
e.g. Hatshepsut (WHm-mzwt, Speos Artemidos inscription, etc.). Modeling linguistic
“artificiality” in the sense defined above would view it as a reflection of a deliberate
linguistic policy, further taken up by officials imitating the official language to
various degrees.
Relations between verbs and simple prepositions in Earlier Egyptian.
Julie Stauder-Porchet
In a first step I shall discuss the general characteristics of the Egyptian preposition as
a part of speech. The Egyptian preposition is morphologically invariable (not taking
into account prosodic phenomena), syntactically multifunctional (including
predicative functions), semantically a relater casting a term A into dependency on a
term B. On formal grounds, one may distinguish preposition locutions and simples
prepositions. Among the latter, m, n, and r can be gathered as a kernel group by the
combination of the following features: they are mononconsonantal, and display clear
Semitic cognates and show prosodic alternation when introducing a pronoun.
In order to appreciate the complexity of relation between a verbal predicate and a
complement introduced by a preposition, some elements of valency theory have to be
introduced. In particular one has to distinguish four types of relations: the “requis et
régi” arguments —the “régi” arguments— the “requis arguments and those phrases
that are neither “requis” nor “régi”, the “circonstants”. The main difficulty is to
establish for every single verb how many and which complements he needs for the
predication to be semantically complete. The richness of several Egyptian verbs lies
in their ability to show up in different valences (e.g. jrj mono-/bivalent; Dd bi-
/trivalent). Earlier Egyptian so compensates for a relatively lower number of verbal
lexemes in specifying the process semantics in the interplay between verb and
preposition.
It is generally assumed that these semantics exclusively pertain to the lexicon.
This might indeed be the case in Later Egyptian, as in many other languages.
However, as far as Earlier Egyptian, the focus of my study, is concerned, this
assumption turns out to be wrong. The analysis of some verbs in their combinations
with prepositional phrases allow us to classify the meaning of the prepositions in
terms of whether they are used in a valential or in a non-valential complement.
Starting with the latter, it so appears that prepositions m, n, r and Hr, when used in
non-valential prepositional phrases, display their fundamental meanings as those can
be defined on the basis of their predicative use. These meanings are respectively:
inclusion (m), projection (n/r) and contact (Hr). Preposition n differs from preposition
r as it is restricted to introducing animate complements only. In contrast, preposition r
when used before an animate complement bears a depreciatory meaning. All further
meanings developed by the prepositions in non valential prepositional phrases may be
derived from these primary meanings.
Turning to uses in valential prepositional phrases, it is possible to demonstrate
how the meaning of the prepositions m, n, r and Hr is contaminated by the motion
feature born by the verb. The inclusion meaning of m becomes ablative, the projective
meanings of n and r becomes allative. As to Hr, the meaning seems to be ablative,
close to the one of m, although the scarcity of examples does not allow any definite
154 GNIRS, ibid.
244