Verbal clause word order

Although not every clause involves a verb (for example, nominal sentences, relative clauses, adverbial clauses), it’s useful to know the order of components in verbal clauses.

In English, the only difference between “The man eats the donut” and “The donut eats the man” is word order, but it makes a big difference for the meaning. Likewise for Egyptian.

The basic rule is VsdoSOA. Allen (2014, p. 185) suggests the mnemonic “Very small dogs often Sniff Other Animals.” Lower-case letters stand for components which are pronominal in nature; upper-case are not.

V: The verb.
s: The subject, if it’s a pronoun.
d: The dative, if pronominal.
o: The object, if it’s a pronoun.
S: The subject, if it’s a noun.
O: The object, if it’s a noun.
A: Adverbs, which includes prepositional phrases, which in turn includes the dative if it’s a noun.

To demonstrate the possibilities, consider the sentence: “Amenhotep gives gold to Nephthys in Thebes.”

The verb is dj. The subject, “Amenhotep”, is jmn-ḥtp as a noun, or .f as a suffix pronoun; the object, “gold”, is nbw as a noun, or st as a dependent pronoun. The dative, “to Nephthys”, is n nbt-ḥwt if nominal, or n.s if pronominal, and “in Thebes” (m wꜣst) is adverbial. The following table shows all the possibilities for assembling this sentence.

V	s	d	o	S	O	A	Meaning
dj	.f	n.s	st			m wꜣst	“He gives it to her in Thebes.”
dj	.f	n.s			nbw	m wꜣst	“He gives gold to her in Thebes.”
dj	.f		st			n nbt-ḥwt m wꜣst	“He gives it to Nephthys in Thebes.”
dj	.f				nbw	n nbt-ḥwt m wꜣst	“He gives gold to Nephthys in Thebes.”
dj		n.s	st	jmn-ḥtp		m wꜣst	“Amenhotep gives it to her in Thebes.”
dj		n.s		jmn-ḥtp	nbw	m wꜣst	“Amenhotep gives gold to her in Thebes.”
dj			st	jmn-ḥtp		n nbt-ḥwt m wꜣst	“Amenhotep gives it to Nephthys in Thebes.”
dj				jmn-ḥtp	nbw	n nbt-ḥwt m wꜣst	“Amenhotep gives gold to Nephthys in Thebes.”