The Semantics of Derived Verbs: A New Look at Old Egyptian Morphology

Stubnova, Silvia

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 2020
Contributor:: Stubnova, Silvia (creator); Allen, James (Advisor); Stauder, Andréas (Reader); Rutz, Matthew (Reader); Depuydt, Leo (Reader); Brown University. Department of Egyptology and Assyriology (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Semantics; Egyptology; Pyramid texts; Egyptian language; Linguistics; Afroasiatic languages
Extent:: xvii, 415 p.

Files

Description

Abstract:: This doctoral dissertation investigates linguistic processes associated with verbal derivation, namely affixation (i.e., adding of a morpheme to a word) and reduplication (i.e., doubling of a word or of its part), as preserved in Old Egyptian, the first stage of the ancient Egyptian language attested in writing. The textual corpus used in this study is the Pyramid Texts, a collection of religious inscriptions found in the royal tombs at Saqqara between ca. 2600-2180 BC. While derivational processes have been individually described for ancient Egyptian, verbal derivation as a whole has not yet been studied in a comprehensive nor systematic way. Therefore, this dissertation aims to identify individual derivational phenomena in Old Egyptian, to determine their function(s) and productivity, to explain their fixed order in which they attach to the verbal stem, and to establish any constraints involved in the derivation of verbs. In order to meet these goals, I employ a unique approach to an investigation of the ancient Egyptian language, drawing on theoretical models from the field of linguistics. Primary emphasis is placed on valency that describes the number of verbal arguments together with their syntactic functions and semantic roles. By focusing on the semantics of Old Egyptian verbs, I elucidate the main function of the enigmatic n-prefix, establish the semantic difference between morphological and periphrastic causative constructions, clarify the meaning and development of reduplication and gemination, and discuss the role of other minor affixes in Old Egyptian. Furthermore, I establish and explain the fixed linear order of derivational phenomena, which reflects the semantic scope of each derivational process and its relevance to the verbal stem. Thus, my research offers a new interpretation of verbal derivation in Old Egyptian that is largely systematized according to the semantic nature of base verbs, suggesting fundamental changes to how scholars interpret the verbal system, while concurrently evaluating the place of ancient Egyptian in the Afroasiatic language family.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2020

Content

Access Conditions

Rights: In Copyright

Citation

Stubnova, Silvia, "The Semantics of Derived Verbs: A New Look at Old Egyptian Morphology" (2020). Egyptology and Assyriology Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:1129447/

Relations

Collection:

Egyptology and Assyriology Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Egyptology and Assyriology department.
...