Lesson 16: Nominal sentences with pw

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It’s time to look at nominal sentences, in which we say that something is something: “Dave is a teacher”, “The soldier is a scribe”, and so forth. This is the fourth and last major type of sentence, along with adverbial, verbal, and adjectival. There are several subtypes of nominal sentences, so we’ll take them one at a time.

“A pw” sentences

This is the “smallest” and simplest sort of nominal sentence. It consists of any noun (or noun phrase) or pronoun, which is “A”, followed by the demonstrative pronoun pw, written ๐“Šช๐“…ฑ or ๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ as you’d expect. pw is a “generic” pronoun, which could be “he”, “she”, “it”, “they”, “these”, “that”, etc. depending on context. Here’s some examples, with A being an independent pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun, and a noun phrase:

๐“ˆ–๐“ฐ๐“๐“‹ด๐“Šช๐“…ฑ nts pw
“It is she.”

๐“…ฎ๐“„ฟ๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ p๊œข pw
“It is this.” (Rhind problem 60)

๐“ˆŸ๐“ฐ๐“๐“๐“ƒ‚๐“ˆ—๐“€€๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ แธฅjmt w๊œคb pw
“She is the wife of a priest.” (Westcar 9, 9)

These sentences can feel like the answer to a simple question, like “Who’s this?” or “What is that?” But they could also be introductory statements; they just need some context. If I saw a friend and just said แธฅjmt w๊œคb pw out of nowhere, they might ask “Wait, who is the wife of a priest?”

pw is used no matter which English pronoun is most apt. If someone saw you reacting to something but couldn’t see what it was, they might ask “What is it?” If you were looking at a woman, you would probably reply, “It’s a woman”, rather than “she’s a woman”, since they asked what “it” was that you reacted to. If asked “Who is she?”, of course you would answer “She’s a woman.” But both answers would be แธฅjmt pw in Egyptian.

When used to mark a sentence like this, pw is always in the masculine singular. Consider this sentence:

๐“ˆŸ๐“ฐ๐“๐“๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ๐“๐“ฐ๐“ˆ– แธฅjmt pw tn
“She is this woman.”

The predicate marker pw never changes form; it is not a modifier to แธฅjmt. The demonstrative tn, however, is a modifier to แธฅjmt, changing “a woman” to “this woman”, and we use the form tn because แธฅjmt is feminine. This is exactly like how a modifier adjective agrees with its noun, while a predicate adjective always uses the masculine singular.

Wait, why did pw go before tn in that example? Let’s find out.

The position of pw

The tricky part of an “A pw” sentence is that pw wants to be as early in the sentence as possible. It has to go after some of A, but if A is a phrase that can be broken up in any way, pw will move forward as much as it can.

In the case of แธฅjmt w๊œคb pw above, pw is not allowed to break up a direct genitive phrase like แธฅjmt w๊œคb. But if the phrase used an indirect genitive, pw would move forward, before the genitival adjective:

๐“ˆŸ๐“ฐ๐“๐“๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ๐“ˆ–๐“ฐ๐“๐“ƒ‚๐“ˆ—๐“€€๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ แธฅjmt pw nt w๊œฅb
“She is the wife of a wab-priest.”

pw will move in front of any adjectives, prepositional phrases, or other modifiers that the noun may have:

๐“‰๐“ฐ๐“ค๐“Šช๐“…ฑ๐“„ค๐“†‘๐“ฐ๐“‚‹ pr pw nfr
“It is a good house”

๐“Ž›๐“…ฑ๐“€ญ๐“Šช๐“…ฑ๐“Ž›๐“ˆ–๐“ฐ๐“‚๐“‹ท๐“„ฟ๐“€ญ แธฅw pw แธฅn๊œฅ sj๊œฃ
“They are Hu and Sia” (CT IV, 231a)

More literal translations of these three examples might be: “She is a wife; one of a priest”; “It is a house; a good one”, and “It is Hu, together with Sia”. In effect, pw has made the “core” sentence as short as possible, and the modifiers are like appendices to the core sentence. In our earlier example แธฅjmt pw tn, a literal translation might be “She’s a woman; this one.”

“A pw B” sentences

Now that you understand the way pw moves toward the front of a sentence, “A pw B” sentences are pretty straightforward.

An “A pw B” sentence simply means “B is A” (in that order), but it is used primarily for cases where both A and B are nouns (or noun phrases). If either one is a pronoun, the “A B” sentence is used, which we will see in a later lesson.

๐“Šน๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“๐“†—๐“Šช๐“…ฑ๐“‰ ๐“๐“ฐ๐“†‡ nแนฏrt pw nbt-แธฅwt
“Nephthys is a goddess.”

๐“ˆŸ๐“ฐ๐“๐“๐“ƒ‚๐“ˆ—๐“€€๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ๐“„ค๐“†‘๐“ฐ๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“๐“ แธฅjmt w๊œคb pw nfrt
“Nofret is the wife of a wab-priest.”

๐“ˆŸ๐“ฐ๐“๐“๐“Šช๐“ฐ๐“ฒ๐“ƒ‚๐“ˆ—๐“€€๐“„ค๐“†‘๐“ฐ๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“๐“ แธฅjmt pw nt w๊œคb nfrt
“Nofret is the wife of a wab-priest.”

With A being a noun (nแนฏrt) in the first sentence, and a direct genitive (แธฅjmt w๊œฅb) in the second sentence, pw cannot move any further forward, but since we switched to the indirect genitive in the third, once again, it did move forward, ahead of the indirect genitive.

Exceptions

There are a few special cases where despite A and B both being nouns, an “A B” sentence is used rather than “A pw B”. Those are:

  • if A and B are the same noun in different phrases, like “my house is your house”;
  • if one of A or B is the noun rn “name”;
  • or if one of A or B is a noun of kinship like “mother” or “sister” (but in that case, “A pw B” can still be used).

We will look at those, and other uses of “A B” sentences, in the next lesson.

Subject and Predicate

A is the predicate in an “A pw” sentence. The whole point of the “A pw” structure is that the “subject” is a given already or isn’t important; “A” is the thing you’re describing. If someone points at an animal and says “What’s that?”, and you reply ๊œขpd pw “it’s a duck”, you can use pw because the subject has already been established to be “That animal” by the person who asked the question.

A is also the predicate in an “A pw B” sentence. Since pw follows the predicate in an “A pw” sentence, by analogy, it follows it in “A pw B” as well. As we stated, an “A pw B” sentence really means “B is A”, not the other way around: nแนฏrt pw nbt-แธฅwt “Nephthys is a goddess”.

Summary: Nominal sentences with pw

  1. For any independent pronoun, demonstrative pronoun, noun, or noun phrase “A”, the sentence “A pw“ means whatever is most appropriate of “It’s A”, “She’s A”, “that’s A”, and so forth: nbw pw “it is gold”, “that is gold”, etc.
  2. The word pw in such a sentence will move as early in the sentence as possible; if A is a noun phrase modified by adjectives, demonstratives, prepositional phrases, or indirect genitives, pw will move ahead of all of those: แธฅjmt pw nt w๊œคb tn “She’s the wife of this priest.”
  3. pw cannot break a direct genitive, however: แธฅjmt w๊œคb pw “She’s a priest’s wife.”
  4. Similarly, the sentence “A pw B” means “B is A”. In such a sentence, pw will move toward the beginning of the sentence as it does in an “A pw” sentence: แธฅjmt pw nt w๊œคb tn nfrt “Nofret is the wife of this priest.”
  5. In a few specific situations, “A pw B” is not the structure used, but “A B” is used instead. These will be treated in the next lesson.
  6. pw always follows the predicate in an “A pw” or “A pw B” sentence; that is, “A” is the predicate.

Vocabulary

  • ๐“‡‹๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“ฟ๐“ฐ๐“๐“ˆ jrแนฏt “milk” var. ๐“‡‹๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“๐“ฑ๐“๐“ˆ, ๐“‡‹๐“น๐“ฐ๐“๐“ฑ๐“๐“ˆ๐“ฐ๐“ฅ jrtt
  • ๐“Šช๐“…ฑ pw “copula” in A pw B nominal sentences
  • ๐“ˆ–๐“ฐ๐“†ฑ๐“ฐ๐“๐“ฑ๐“๐“€œ nแธซt โ€œstrong, powerful, victoriousโ€
  • ๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“ฟ๐“€€๐“ฑ๐“๐“ฐ๐“ฅ rmแนฏ “people, populace”
    • Note peculiar spelling; the m is frequently omitted, and we have done so.
  • ๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“๐“œ rแธซ “experience, learn, know”
  • ๐“Ž›๐“…ฑ๐“€ญ แธฅw Hu (god of creative utterance)
  • ๐“›๐“๐“ แธฅmt “female servant”
  • ๐“†ผ๐“‹ด๐“๐“ฐ๐“ˆ‰ แธซ๊œขst “foreign country, hilly country, desert” var. ๐“ˆ‰๐“ฐ๐“๐“ฑ๐“ค
  • ๐“„š๐“ฐ๐“ˆ–๐“Œ๐“…ฑ๐“‰ แบ–nw “interior”
  • ๐“‹ท๐“„ฟ๐“€ญ sj๊œข Sia (god of perception)
  • ๐“Žก๐“„ฟ๐“ˆ™๐“ฐ๐“ˆ‰ k๊œขลก (fem.) “Kush” (Nubia)
    • The names of countries and towns are generally treated as feminine nouns regardless of their ending.

Exercises

(to be written)

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