Lesson 10: Objects, order, and selves

← Previous

Index

Next β†’

More biliterals

π“Ž” mαΈ₯
Whip		π“„“ ns
Tongue		𓄝 st
Cow’s skin shot by arrow
π“…˜ nαΈ₯
Guinea fowl		π“…§ ꜀q
Cormorant		π“„ž Ε‘d
Waterskin
π“ŽΏ αΈ₯z or αΈ₯s
hes-vase		π“‚Έ mt
Phallus		π“ͺ qd
Builder’s level
π“„Ÿ ms
Three fox skins tied		𓆱 αΈ«t
Branch		π“Š½ ḏd
Djed-pillar

Object of a verb

The object of a verb (often known as the direct object) is that thing which the verb acts upon. For example, if the verb is “to hit”, the direct object is the thing which is actually hit.

The direct object can be a noun or a dependent pronoun. For a direct object noun, you simply place the object after the subject. This is true whether the subject is itself a noun, or is a suffix pronoun.

π“Œ΄π“°π“Ήπ“„Ώπ“„Ώπ“†‘π“Šͺπ“°π“π“Ž› m꜒꜒.f ptαΈ₯
“He sees Ptah.”

π“… π“…“π“…“π“Šƒπ“Ž›π“†Šπ“ˆ—π“€ gm(j) mzαΈ₯ mw
“The crocodile finds the water.”

But if the direct object is a dependent pronoun, things get more complicated. We also said things get complicated with a dative phrase. So now we’re going to figure out how the parts of a verbal clause fit together.

Word order in verbal clauses

Let us list and label all the things that can be in a verbal clause. It must have a verb (“V”). It should usually have a subject, which can be a pronoun (“s”) or a noun (“S”). It can also have an object, which likewise could be a pronoun or noun (“o” or “O”), and it can also have a dative. If the indirect object is a pronoun, as in n.f “for him”, then the dative phrase gets its own special position in the sentence, which we’ll label as “d”.

A clause may also have other prepositional phrases or adverbs, like “in the house” or “yesterday”: “He caught the ball in the yard.” “She gave me the gift yesterday.” We’ll label such things “A” for “adverbs”. (The prepositional phrases just function like adverbs, telling you more about where or when the action happened.) If the indirect object is a noun, like n ptαΈ₯ “for Ptah”, it goes into “A” like any other prepositional phrase.

All our possible components are therefore V, s/S, o/O, d, A. And there is a specific order they go in: VsdoSOA. Here’s some examples of this order in use.

π“‚žπ“€€π“Š΅π“°π“π“±π“Šͺ𓏳𓐰π“₯π“ˆ–π“ŒΆπ“‚π“°π“π“œπ“π“…“π“ŠΉπ“‰—π“π“°π“‰
dj.j αΈ₯tp n m꜒꜀t m αΈ₯wt-nαΉ―r (V, s, O, A)
“I give an offering to Maat in the temple.”
(lit. “Give I an offering to Maat in the temple.”)

Since the dative phrase contains a noun (n m꜒꜀t “to/for Maat”), it goes along with the other prepositional phrase “in the temple”.

π“‚žπ“€€π“ˆ–π“‹΄π“Š΅π“°π“π“±π“Šͺ𓏳𓐰π“₯π“…“π“ŠΉπ“‰—π“π“°π“‰
dj.j n.s αΈ₯tp m αΈ₯wt-nαΉ―r (V, s, d, O, A)
“I give an offering to her in the temple.”
(lit. “Give I to her an offering in the temple.”)

We’ve changed the dative phrase to contain a pronoun (n.s “for her”), so it now takes the special “d” position.

π“†“π“³π“‚§π“ˆ–π“°π“€€π“‹΄π“π“ŒΆπ“‚π“°π“π“œπ“π“…“π“ŠΉπ“‰—π“π“°π“‰
ḏd n.j st m꜒꜀t m αΈ₯wt-nαΉ―r (V, d, o, S, A)
“Maat says it for me in the temple.”
(lit. “Says for me it Maat in the temple.”)

We changed the object from “an offering” to the pronoun “it”, so it is now in the small-o “o” slot. Also, you can see it’s using the dependent pronoun, the neutral 𓋴𓏏 st. But the subject is now the noun m꜒꜀t, so it takes the big-S “S” slot instead of the small-s “s” one, and thus now it follows the object. The dative “d” comes before both “o” and “S”, and the other prepositional phrase “in the temple” remains at the end of the clause, in “A”, as it always will.

π“†“π“³π“‚§π“‹΄π“π“ŒΆπ“‚π“°π“π“œπ“π“ˆ–π“Šͺπ“°π“π“Ž›π“…“π“ŠΉπ“‰—π“π“°π“‰
ḏd st m꜒꜀t n ptαΈ₯ m αΈ₯wt-nαΉ―r (V, o, S, A)
“Maat says it for Ptah in the temple.”
(lit. “Says it Maat for Ptah in the temple.”)

Finally, we changed the dative from “for me” to “for Ptah”, which means the dative phrase goes back to the “A” slot with the other prepositional phrase, but the dependent pronoun object still comes before the noun subject (“o, S”).

In his Middle Egyptian, James P. Allen gives a wonderfully silly mnemonic to remember the VsdoSOA order: “Very small dogs often Sniff Other Animals.” Then you just have to remember which words are capitalized, and that pronouns are “small” words while nouns are “big” words, and you’re good to go.

If you’re wondering why this order seems to be the case, see the Sidebar for this lesson.

Reflexive and emphatic pronouns

In English we use reflexive pronouns to distinguish a sentence like “He hits himself” from “He hits him” (some other guy). Egyptian does not make this distinction: 𓅠𓅓𓆑𓋴𓅱 gm.f sw can mean either “he finds him” (some other man than the one who is doing the finding), or “he finds himself.”

The English “-self” pronouns can also be used emphatically as well as reflexively, however, and Egyptian does have a way to express this. There is a word 𓆓𓐳𓋴 ḏs “self” (later spelled π“†“π“³π“Šƒ) which can take the suffix pronouns to form “myself”, “yourself”, “himself”, etc. for emphatic purposes. This means it can act as an adverb saying that the subject did something on their own:

π“… π“…“π“‹΄π“ˆ–π“°π“₯π“‹΄π“…±π“†“π“³π“‹΄π“‹΄π“ˆ–π“°π“₯ gm.sn sw ḏs.sn
“They find him themselves“

Or it can follow a noun to emphasize, either who the noun is, or who its possessor is:

π“ŽŸπ“°π“π“‰—π“π“°π“‰π“π“†“π“³π“Šƒπ“‹΄ nbt-αΈ₯wt ḏs.s
“Nephthys herself”

π“‚‹π“°π“ˆ–π“€€π“†“π“³π“‹΄π“€€ rn.j ḏs.j
“my own name” (lit. “my name, myself”)

Summary: Objects, order, and selves

  1. The object of a sentence can be expressed by a noun, or by a dependent pronoun.
  2. The order of the components in a verbal sentence is usually: Verb, subject pronoun, dative phrase with pronoun, object pronoun, Subject noun, Object noun, Adverbs.
  3. If the indirect object is a noun, such as n ptαΈ₯ “for Ptah”, then the dative phrase simply goes in the “Adverbs” portion of the clause along with all other prepositional phrases. It only moves ahead of the object and nouns if it is a pronoun, like n.s “for her”.
  4. Professor Allen’s mnemonic for the above order is: VsdoSOA = “Very small dogs often Sniff Other Animals.”
  5. Egyptian does not have true reflexive pronouns to distinguish “he hit him” (some other man) from “he hit himself”.
  6. Egyptian does, however, have the word ḏs “self” which, together with the suffix pronouns, forms emphatic pronouns: nbt-αΈ₯wt ḏs.s “Nephthys herself”, rn.j ḏs.j “my own name”; gm.αΉ―n st ḏs.αΉ―n “you find it yourselves”.

Vocabulary

  • π“…“π“Šƒπ“Ž›π“†Š mzαΈ₯ “crocodile”
  • π“ŽŸπ“€€ nb “lord, master, owner”
    • π“ŽŸπ“°π“π“ nbt “lady, mistress, owner”
  • 𓉠𓏏𓐰𓆇 nbt-αΈ₯wt Nephthys (goddess; sister of Isis, Osiris, and Set; friend of the dead)
    • var. π“ŽŸπ“°π“π“‰—π“π“°π“‰π“, 𓉠𓏏𓁐
  • 𓇳𓐰𓏀𓀭 r꜀ (r꜀w) Ra or Re (god of the sun)
  • 𓉔𓄿𓃀𓂻 h꜒b β€œsend”
  • 𓉗𓏏𓐰𓉐 αΈ₯wt “enclosure”
  • π“ŠΉπ“‰—π“π“°π“‰ αΈ₯wt-nαΉ―r “temple” (“god’s enclosure”)
  • 𓄑𓐰𓂋𓐰𓂧𓀔 αΊ–rd “child”
  • 𓋴𓆼𓄿𓀁 sḫ꜒ “remember”
  • π“… π“…“ gm(j) “find”
  • 𓆓𓐳𓋴 (later π“†“π“³π“Šƒ) ḏs “self”

Exercises

(forthcoming)

Gardiner (1957, p. 54, Β§66) gives the rule: “that a noun must not precede a pronoun and that the dependent pronoun must not precede a suffix.”

So we still haven’t explained why it is so, but from that rule, the order VsdoSOA works itself out as follows:

  1. Most languages fall into a pattern where most of their verbal clauses have one of six possible orders of verb, subject, and object: SVO (like English), SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS.
  2. Egyptian happens to have “chosen” VSO. So the basic word order of a verbal clause would like to be verb, subject, object, followed by “everything else” in adverbs/prepositional phrases. (VSOA).
  3. But, all the pieces which are pronominal must come before the pieces which are nominal (for reasons we will discuss below), so any of s, d, o must come before whichever of S, O, A are still nouns.
  4. Of s, d, and o, the subject s must come first, since it is a suffix pronoun and attaches directly to the verb.
  5. Of d and o, the object o must come second, because the dependent pronoun o prefers to come after the suffix pronouns, and the presence of “d” means that the dative phrase is n followed by a suffix pronoun. So d comes before o, and our order is now complete.

Okay, so the big question: why do the pronouns come before the nouns? Allen (2014, pp. 167–168) notes that it is likely that the pronominal components were pronounced as part of the same “stress” (or “meter”, perhaps, in the poetry sense) as the verb, whereas nouns would have gotten their own stress.

Consider how we would stress the words if we said them in English, but in the Egyptian order. Let’s start with subject, object, and dative all as nouns.

β€œGives Bob an offering to Maat in the temple.”

But remember, “an” wouldn’t even be there in the Egyptian, and nor would “the”, so it’s just:

β€œGives Bob offering to Maat in temple.”

Now when this is said, the word “to” is likely to be a bit contracted, while the other words will be said normally: β€œGives Bob offering t’ Maat in temple.”

Now change “Maat” to “her”, and “to her” is likely to be contracted more like “TO’er”:

β€œGives Bob offering TO’er in temple.”

It’s much less emphasized than as a noun. Now make the dative a noun again but make the object “it”. You will find that “it” gets contracted a bit instead:

β€œGives BOB’t to Maat in temple.”

Make the object “offering” again but change the subject to “he”, and the subject contracts:

β€œGIVES’e offering to Maat in temple.”

Now make all three of them pronouns, and they all kinda fall under the stress from the verb:

β€œGIVES’e-it-to’er in temple.”

Sounds a bit racy. But you can understand how pronouns become less emphasized, and thus get contracted in colloquial speech.

Consider that even in normal English grammar, we do the same thing. Compare these sentences:

“I gave the ball to Dave.”
“I gave the ball to him.“

Next to the word “Dave”, the preposition “to” becomes de-emphasized: “I gave the ball t’DAVE.” But next to “him”, the “to” becomes emphatic: “I gave the ball TO’im.” It sounds like we’re emphasizing “I gave the ball to him, not putting it in his mailbox or asking his mom to make sure he gets it.”

So when we just want to include “him” in the sentence normally, the word moves to a different place in the sentence: “I gave him the ball”, pronounced “GAVE’m.”

Hopefully this helps you understand why (in theory) Egyptian sentence order is as tricky as it is, and furthermore, that it isn’t really that odd since we do something similar.

← Previous

Index

Next β†’