Vocabulary

Lesson 7 Linking words together

Nouns can be linked together in a number of ways. Two nouns can e.g. be related to one another through an "of" relation by means of a direct or indirect genitival relation. Further more they can be coupled through apposition, coordination or disjunction. These different constructs are explained in this lesson.

Not only nouns can express possessive relationships. A personal pronoun can e.g. act as a substitute for the second noun, in which case it appears as a possessive pronoun. As an example, the phrase 'the book of the man' will then appear as 'his book' or 'the book of him'.

The direct genitival relation

With a direct genitival construction the two nouns involved are closely coupled. They form a union with a governing and a governed word. This is often called a status constructus. The connective word 'of' has no counterpart in the Egyptian language: the two nouns are simply written side by side. Note that the nouns involved retain their individuality: there is no adaptation in gender or number.

The connection with a direct genitive is mainly used with nouns that have a strong semantic tie, e.g. 'the mistress of the house', 'the servant of god' (priest), 'the house of god' (temple), 'the house of the king' (palace), etc. A fair number of these word combinations have so strong semantic ties that they are in fact considered as compound words. The determinative sign, which belongs to the governing noun, is in these cases written behind the second, governed noun.

When an adjective follows two nouns that are connected through a direct genitival relation, the adjective belongs to the first noun (governing word). In that case the adjective follows the governing noun in gender and number. An example:

The indirect genitival relation

In case of an indirect genitival relation, the connective word 'of' is explicitly written between the governing and the governed noun. In the Egyptian script, the connective element is represented by the letter 'n'. To be more precise, this connective element is in fact the nisbe-form of the preposition 'n'. As such it adapts in gender and number to the governing noun. The following forms of the connective element 'n' can thus be found:

Below follow some examples of the indirect genitival construction:

The apposition

When two nouns follow each other, and the second one defines, clarifies or specifies the first, this is called an apposition. In most cases the second word provides a closer identification of the first word, e.g. 'the writer, i.e. Hetepi'. Special cases of this grammatical form are used to specify:

• the material from which a thing is made

• measures and numbers

• places and regions

 Coordination 

The Egyptian language has no special word for 'and'. The nouns that are to be joined together are simply placed one after the other. For strongly associated nouns, the following prepositions can be used to connect them together:

Some examples:

 Disjunction

A disjunction is the connection of nouns, expressed in English with the particle 'or'. In the Egyptian language the words are again simply written one after the other. The context must make clear that a disjunction is being expressed. Sometimes the grammatical element is written after the last noun. An example:

 The superlative

The superlative (the biggest, the best) is missing in the Egyptian language. To express this concept a number of possibilities exist:

• use the same noun twice: the first time in singular form, the second time as a plural

• with the help of 'imy' (literally: 'he who is in')

 Vocabulary 

Lesson 8  The Adjective 

An adjective is a word that describes or qualifies a person or thing. Examples are: the beautiful servant, the large temple, etc. In ancient Egyptian, there occur two types of ajectives:

• common adjectives These are derived from verbs that indicate a property. E.g. the adjective "good" is derived from the verb "to be good".

• nisbe adjectives These are derived from nouns or prepositions.