Basic Concepts in Grammar

Root

A root is the base of a word — the part that carries its core meaning. Usually (but not always) it consists of consonants.

Everyday examples:

• English: SIGN → sign, design, signal

In Middle Egyptian:

Middle Egyptian, like the Semitic languages, is built on consonantal roots:

• Usually of two or three consonants (sometimes four; five — relatively rare)

• Different verbs and nouns are formed from the same root

Example:

The root sḏm means hearing; from it derive the words:

Type	Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
Verb verb		sḏm	“[To] hear”
Noun noun		sḏmj	“[He that] hears / listens” “[A] judge” [the one that hears the sides]

Another example: a root and its additions

The root ḥtp means peace and contentment. Below is the root itself, followed by the same root with various additions — a determinative, an ending, and a genitive:

Type	Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Addition	English
Verb		ḥtp	— (the root)	“[To] be at peace, be content”
Noun		ḥtp	+ offering determinative	“Offering”
Noun		ḥtp	+ altar determinative	“Altar”
Noun (collective)		ḥtp.w	+ ending .w	“Peace, contentment”
Noun phrase		ḥtp-nṯr	+ nṯr (genitive)	“Divine offering”

Gender

Grammatical gender is a division of nouns into categories, usually:

• Masculine

• Feminine

It is not always related to biological sex.

Everyday examples:

• English: almost only in pronouns (he / she)

In Middle Egyptian:

Egyptian has two genders:

• Masculine

• Feminine

A feminine noun usually ends with the added ending t ; in transliteration a dot is placed before it ( dp.t “boat”). The t is not part of the root of the noun.

Examples:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	sn	“Brother”
	sn.t	“Sister”
	s	“Man”
	s.t	“Woman”

Gender affects:

• Adjectives

• Pronouns

• Agreement in the sentence

Exceptions: there are masculine nouns ending in t, in which the t is part of the root and not a feminine ending — e.g. ḫt “wood, mast” and jt “father”. There are also feminine nouns that do not end in t, such as sfḫjj “fortress”, and names of lands and places. These must be memorized.

Number

Number is a grammatical category of the noun. It indicates whether one item or more than one is meant. Number is usually marked by an ending, and the words linked to the noun, such as the adjective, the pronoun and the verb, agree with it. We distinguish between:

• Singular

• Plural

• And in some languages: dual

Everyday examples:

• English: cat, cats

In Middle Egyptian:

Middle Egyptian has three numbers: singular, dual and plural. The masculine singular is unmarked; the other forms are marked by endings:

Hieroglyphs	Feminine	Hieroglyphs	Masculine	Number
	.t		None	Singular
	.tjj	,	.wjj	Dual
	.wt	,	.w	Plural

• When the ending is written, it comes before the determinative; the plural strokes come after the determinative.

• The w of the masculine plural is not always written, and the w of the feminine plural is almost never written — e.g. ḥm.wt “women” is written ḥm.t with plural strokes. In transliteration one always writes the full ending.

In hieroglyphic writing, the plural is sometimes also marked graphically (three strokes or three circles, vertical or horizontal → , , , ).

Examples:

Number	Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
Singular Singular		pr	“House”
Dual Dual		ꜥ.wjj	“Two arms”
Plural Plural		nṯr.w	“Gods”

Sometimes the dual is written by doubling the logogram ( jr.t “eye” → jr.tjj “two eyes”) or by doubling the determinative ( tꜣ “land” → tꜣ.wjj “Two Lands”).

Similarly, the plural is written by tripling ( pr “house” → pr.w “houses”; nṯr “god” → nṯr.w “gods”).

Apparent plural: the plural strokes are sometimes also used in words that are not plural — in collective nouns (see below), in words ending in w such as nfrw “beauty”, and in the pronoun =sn “they”. In these cases no plural ending is transliterated.

Collective Nouns

A collective noun is a noun that is singular in form but denotes a group: people, herd, crew.

Everyday examples:

• English: people, herd, crew

In Middle Egyptian:

Most collective nouns are feminine singular, with the ending .t. In writing they often appear with plural strokes and with a determinative of people or animals — but grammatically they are singular.

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	rmṯ.t	“Mankind, people”
	rḫjj.t	“Commoners, subjects”
	mnmn.t	“Cattle, herd”

Agreement:

• An adjective describing a collective noun is feminine singular: rmṯ(.t) nb.t “all people” — not rmṯ.w nb.w.

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	rmṯ(.t) nb.t	“all people”

• A personal pronoun referring to a collective noun can be plural (=sn), according to the sense — as in British English “the crew are leaving”.

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	ꜥw.t nb.t jb.w=sn rm(.w)	“all the flocks — their hearts weep”

Grammatical Person

Grammatical person indicates a participant's role in the discourse — whether it is the speaker, the addressee, or the one spoken about.

Types:

In Middle Egyptian:

Person is marked mainly by the personal pronouns — in particular the suffix pronoun attached to a verb, a noun, or a preposition.

Examples:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English	Person and gender
	sḏm=j	“I hear”	First
	sḏm=k	“You hear” (sing.)	2nd masculine
	sḏm=ṯ	“You hear” (fem.)	2nd feminine
	sḏm=f	“He hears”	3rd masculine
	sḏm=s	“She hears”	3rd feminine
	sḏm=sn	“They hear”	3rd plural

Definiteness

Definiteness answers the question: is it something general or something specific and known?

Everyday examples:

• English: A house / The house

In Middle Egyptian:

Middle Egyptian has no definite article like “the”.

Therefore:

• pr can mean a house or the house

• Context decides

This is one of the most important differences between Egyptian and modern languages.

In the spoken language the demonstrative pronouns pꜣ, tꜣ, nꜣ (“this” m., “this” f., “these”) began to serve as a kind of definite article — e.g. pꜣ sš “the scribe”. In Late Egyptian they became a true definite article, and in Middle Egyptian texts they appear occasionally.

wꜥ as a (sort of) Indefinite Article

The word wꜥ is the number “one” in Middle Egyptian — an ordinary cardinal number that agrees in gender with the noun it counts (wꜥ for masculine, wꜥ.t for feminine). In its ordinary use it comes after the noun it counts.

Written Middle Egyptian does not use an indefinite article like English a. However, when wꜥ comes before the noun and is linked to it by an indirect genitive (wꜥ n), the meaning of the phrase is close to “a certain one” — and in Late Egyptian this phrase became the indefinite article (“a”). When wꜥ is joined in the phrase wꜥ m, it means “one of”.

When wꜥ serves as an independent noun meaning “sole, unique, singular” — it creates definiteness by its very nature. What is sole and unique is necessarily definite — no “the” is needed, since there is nothing else like it.

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	pr wꜥ	“One house”
	wꜥ n(.jj) ṯsm	“[A] dog”, lit: “One of dog”
	wꜥ m nꜣ n ꜥꜣ.w	“One of these donkeys”
	nṯr wꜥ	“[The] unique god”
	wꜥ	“[The] one [who is alone in the world]”

Subject

The subject is the element of the sentence that indicates who or what the sentence is about, that is, the entity of which the predicate is said. Syntactically, the subject is usually the performer of the action in a verbal sentence or the entity described in a nominal sentence.

Everyday examples:

• English: The boy runs, The great scribe, He writes

In Middle Egyptian:

The subject can be a noun, a personal pronoun or a noun phrase.

In the verbal sentence the subject comes after the verb and before the object. In the adverbial sentence the subject comes at the head of the sentence, after the introductory particle.

Examples (verb in blue, subject in red, object in green):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	sḏm sš mdw	“[The] scribe hears [a] speech”
	mꜣꜣ s sš	“[The] man sees [a] scribe”
	jrj ḥm.t t	“[The] woman makes [a] loaf”
	jnj bꜣk mw	“[The] servant brings water”

This is the basic and most common structure: verb → subject (→ object)

Predicate

The predicate is one of the two central components of a sentence — it is the part that says what is said about the subject. The predicate is the part of the sentence that describes the action, state, quality or identity of the subject.

It answers the question: what does the subject do / what happens to it / what is it?

In Middle Egyptian the predicate need not be a verb: it can be a verb (verbal sentence), a noun or pronoun (nominal sentence), an adjective (adjectival sentence), or a prepositional phrase or adverb (adverbial sentence) — and the type of predicate determines the type of sentence.

Nor need the predicate be a single word: it can be a whole phrase — a noun phrase (nṯr ꜥꜣ “a great god”) or a prepositional phrase (m pr “in the house”) — functioning as a single unit.

Its position follows from its type: a verbal predicate and an adjectival predicate come at the head of the sentence, before the subject; an adverbial predicate comes after the subject.

Examples:

• English: The boy runs / The house is big / The man is a scribe

Types of predicate in Middle Egyptian:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration and translation	Type of predicate
	jw sḏm=f “he hears”	Verbal predicate
	nfr sḫr “[the] plan is good”	Adjectival predicate
	jw s m pr “[the] man is in the house”	Adverbial predicate
	bj.t pw “this is a bee”	Nominal predicate

Object

The object is an element of the sentence that indicates the entity on which the action described by the verb is performed. Syntactically it usually appears with a transitive verb and completes its meaning.

Everyday examples:

• English: I saw the man, He built a house

In Middle Egyptian:

The object can be a noun, a noun phrase or a personal pronoun. A personal pronoun serving as the object of a finite verb takes the form of a dependent pronoun (wj, sw, sj, etc.); after an infinitive it appears as a suffix pronoun.

The object usually comes after the subject. However, when the object is a dependent pronoun and the subject is a noun — the pronoun comes before the subject: sḏm sw nsw.t “the king hears him” (lit. “hears him the king”).

Examples (verb in blue, subject in red, object in green, preposition in purple, adjective in orange):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	jw sḏm=f ḫrw=f	“He hears his voice”
	jw hꜣb.n=f sw	“He sent him”
	jw sḏm=s mdw	“She hears [a] speech”
	jw mꜣꜣ=f sw	“He sees him”
	jw wnm=f t	“He eats bread”
	jw rdj=f mw n bꜣk	“He gives water to [the] servant”

Note: in the examples above jw is a sentence/clause introducer, which will be discussed later.

Direct and Indirect Object (Dative)

In grammar the indirect object is also called the “dative”.

There are two types of object:

• Direct object — who or what receives the action directly, without a preposition.

• Indirect object — the one for whom or toward whom the action is done. In Egyptian it is marked by the preposition n “to, for” (dative).

Examples (verb in blue, subject in red, direct object in green, indirect object (dative) in light blue, preposition in purple):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	jw ms.n=j n=f jnw	“I brought him tribute”
	jw hꜣb.n=f sw n nsw.t	“He sent him to [the] king”
	jw rdj.n=f mw n bꜣk	“He gave water to [the] servant”
	jw jnj.n=s t n sn=s	“She brought bread to her brother”

Order of elements in the verbal sentence: pronouns come before nouns. The full order is therefore:

The table shows all the possible slots, not a single sentence. The subject and the object each have two slots: the pronoun attaches close to the verb, and the noun comes after it. In any sentence only one of each pair is filled, and the dash “—” marks a slot not used in the sample sentence. In the example in the table the subject is a noun (nsw “the king”), so the pronominal subject slot is empty; the object is a dependent pronoun (sw “it”), so the nominal object slot is empty.

In the example jw ms.n=j n=f jnw “I brought him tribute”, the dative n=f comes before the object jnw because it is a pronoun.

Sentence

A sentence is a minimal unit of language expressing a complete thought: it has a subject and a predicate, and it stands on its own. A sentence may consist of an independent clause alone or of a main clause + one or more subordinate clauses (see below). In Middle Egyptian several things differ from what the student is used to:

• No punctuation: there is no period at the end of a sentence, no comma, no question mark. Sentence boundaries are determined by grammatical structure and context alone.

• Introductory particle: many sentences open with a particle such as jw or mk which is usually not translated but marks an independent main sentence.

• No verb “to be”. Many sentences that in English require a verb (“the temple is large”, “she was in the house”) are built in Egyptian with no verb at all. Juxtaposition alone suffices.

• Verb first: unlike English, where the subject normally opens the sentence, in the Egyptian verbal sentence the verb comes first: verb, subject, object.

• Context decides everything: sentence boundaries, tense and sentence type are usually all determined by context alone, not by external markers.

Middle Egyptian uses several different sentence types:

• Verbal sentence

• Nominal sentence

• Adjectival sentence

• Adverbial sentence

Each sentence type is discussed in detail in the following chapters.

Middle Egyptian examples:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Meaning	Sentence type
	jw jrj.n s dp.t m sf	“[The] man built a boat yesterday” “[The] man built [a] boat yesterday	Verbal
	mw.t=j Nw.t	“My mother [is] Nut” “My mother [is] Nut”	Nominal
	nfr bꜣk	“[The] servant [is] good” “[The] servant [is] good”	Adjectival
	jw bꜣk m pr	“[The] servant [is] in the house” “[The] servant [is] in [the] house”	Adverbial

Clause

A clause is a syntactic unit containing at least a subject and a predicate, expressing a statement or an action within the sentence. A clause can stand as an independent sentence (a main clause) or appear as part of a complex sentence, dependent on another clause (a subordinate clause).

Sentences in every language consist of one or more clauses. The term clause means “a combination of subject and predicate”. Like phrases, clauses are combinations of words; the difference is that a clause always contains a subject and a predicate, whereas a phrase does not necessarily contain these elements.

Some word groups can only be a phrase or only a clause: for example nfr r ḫt nb “better than anything” (phrase), as against nfr st “it is good” (clause). Other word groups can serve either as a phrase or as a clause, depending on how they are used: for example nfr jb “good-hearted” (phrase) or “the heart is good” (clause).

When a clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence, it is called a main clause or an independent clause; a clause that cannot stand alone is called a subordinate clause or a dependent clause.

An example of a complex sentence containing several clause types:

	Hieroglyphs
ꜥḥꜥ.n šm.kwj r smj.t st, gm.n=j sw, rḫ(.w) st	Transliteration
“Then I went to report it, [and] I found him [when he] already knew it”	English
"Then I went to report it, [and] I found him already aware of it."	English

Analysis:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Translation	Clause type
	ꜥḥꜥ.n šm.kwj	Then I went	Narrative main clause
	r smj.t st	to report it	Purpose
	gm.n=j sw	[and] I found him	Circumstantial
	rḫ(.w) st	[when he] already knew it	Circumstantial

The main clause and the subordinate clause are discussed in detail in the chapter “The Complex Sentence”.

Topic and Comment

In every sentence one can distinguish between the topic (what the sentence is about) and the comment (what is said about it). The topic is not necessarily the grammatical subject of the sentence.

Everyday examples:

• “This book — I have read it.” The topic is “this book”, although grammatically it is the object.

In Middle Egyptian:

To make an element the topic, it is moved to the head of the sentence, and in its normal position in the sentence a resumptive pronoun referring to it appears. Sometimes the fronted element is marked by the preposition jr “as for”.

Examples:

	Hieroglyphs
ḫbsw.t=f wr s(jj) r mḥ 2	Transliteration
“His beard — [it is] longer than two cubits”	English
“His beard — [it] was longer than two cubits”	English

	Hieroglyphs
jr sf Wsjr pw	Transliteration
“As for yesterday — that is Osiris”	English
“As for yesterday — it is Osiris”	English

Chapter New Vocabulary

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Type	English
	jw	Particle	Introductory particle
	jnj	Verb	To bring, fetch
	jnw	Noun	Produce, tribute
	jr	Particle	As for
	jrj	Verb	To do, make
	jr.t	Noun	Eye
	jr.tjj	Noun (dual)	Two eyes (dual)
,	jt	Noun	Father
	ꜥ	Noun	Arm
	ꜥꜣ	Noun	Donkey
	ꜥ.wjj	Noun (dual)	Two arms (dual)
	ꜥw.t	Collective noun	Small cattle (sheep & goats)
	ꜥḥꜥ	Verb	To stand; ꜥḥꜥ.n "then"
,	wj	Dependent pronoun	Me (dependent pronoun)
	wꜥ	Numeral	One
	wnm	Verb	To eat
	wr	Adjective	Great
	Wsjr	Proper noun	Osiris
	bꜣk	Noun	Servant, labourer
	bj.t	Noun	Bee
	pꜣ	Demonstrative pronoun	The, this (m.)
	pw	Relative pronoun	This, it is
	m	Preposition	in, on, with, from, as, consisting of, by
	mw	Noun	Water
	mnmn.t	Collective noun	Cattle, herd
	mḥ	Noun	Cubit
	ms	Verb	To bring, present
	mk	Particle	Behold, look
	mdw	Noun	Speech, word
	n	Preposition	to, for, because of
	nꜣ	Demonstrative pronoun	These
	n.jj	Adjective (nisba)	Of, belonging to
	Nw.t	Proper noun	Nut (sky goddess)
	nb	Adjective	All, every
	nfr	Adjective	Good, beautiful
—	nfrw	Noun	Beauty
	r	Preposition	to, toward, against, at the time of, concerning
	rmj	Verb	To weep
	rmṯ.t	Collective noun	Mankind, people
	rḫ	Verb	To know
	rḫjj.t	Collective noun	Commoners, subjects
	rdj	Verb	To give, put
	hꜣb	Verb	To send
	ḥm.t	Noun	Woman, wife
	ḫbsw.t	Noun	Beard
	ḫrw	Noun	Voice
	ḫt	Noun	Wood
	s	Noun	Man
	sw	Dependent pronoun	Him, it (dependent pronoun)
	sf	Adverb	Yesterday
	sfḫjj	Noun	Fortress
	smj	Verb	To report
	sn	Noun	Brother
	sḫr	Noun	Plan, counsel
	sš	Noun	Scribe
	s.t	Noun	Woman
	sḏmj	Noun	Judge (“one who hears”)
	šm	Verb	To go
	gmj	Verb	To find
	t	Noun	Bread
	tꜣ	Noun	Land, earth
	tꜣ.wjj	Noun (dual)	The Two Lands (Egypt)
	ṯsm	Noun	Dog
	dp.t	Noun	Boat