The Stative

The stative is a verb form which expresses a state of being, usually but not always because of a completed action.

Older Egyptology texts have other terms for the stative, notably “pseudo-participle” and “old perfective”. It existed from Old Egyptian all the way through Coptic, so calling it “old” is a bit of a misnomer.

Suffixes

The stative always has a pronominal suffix (although some forms are weak and often omitted in writing), and the suffixes are special ones only used with the stative; there are a number of complications with how they are written.

PersonEndingGlyphsNotes
1st sing..kw ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑโ€Œ๐“€€, ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“€€,
๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑ๐“‡‹, ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑ		The reed leaf here is a substitute for the seated man (A1); the ending is not .kwj. In Old Egyptian it was ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“‡‹ .kj and this persists in Middle Egyptian occasionally.
2nd sing..tj ๐“˜๐“‡‹, ๐“˜, ๐“;
in N.K. also ๐“๐“ฒ		When the suffix is spelled ๐“ it is usually written before the verb’s determinative, if any: ๐“‰๐“‚‹โ€Œ๐“๐“‚ป pr.t(j) “you have come”. If the verb ends in t the suffix can be omitted, probably because of the “Two Consonants Together” rule.
3rd masc. sing..w
or
.y		๐“…ฑ, ๐“ฒ
or
๐“‡‹๐“‡‹		Usually not written because weak; when it was written, it appears before the determinative. Old Egyptian form was ๐“‡‹ .j. The .y form is only used sometimes, and that in final-weak verbs.
3rd fem. sing..tjAs 2nd sing.As 2nd sing.
1st plur..nw
or
.wjn 		๐“ˆ–๐“ฅ
or
๐“…ฑ๐“ญ๐“ˆ–๐“ฅ		.nw was the original form; it continues occasionally in early Middle Egyptian.
2nd plur..tjwnj๐“…‚๐“ˆ–๐“ญ,
๐“…‚๐“ˆ–		Note this bird is the tjw vulture and not the ๊œฃ one (G1).
3rd plur..wj
or
.y		๐“…ฑ, ๐“ฒ, sometimes ๐“…ฑ๐“ช;
or
๐“‡‹๐“‡‹		Usually not written, but is before the determinative when it is.
Old Egyptian had a 3rd fem. plur. form which was .tj, just like the 3rd fem. sing., and duals: 3rd masc. dual ๐“…ฑ๐“‡‹๐“‡‹, ๐“ฒ๐“ญ .wjj and 3rd fem. dual ๐“˜๐“‡‹๐“‡‹๐“ญ, ๐“˜๐“‡‹๐“‡‹ .tjj. These are rare in Middle Egyptian; .wj or .y serves for both 3rd plural and dual, of whichever gender.

Usually the base stem is used for the stative, but sometimes the geminated stem is used instead. Here are a few examples of the stative in use.

๐“€ป๐“‹ด๐“‹ด๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑ ลกpss.kw
“I am ennobled”

๐“‰”โ€Œ๐“„ฟ๐“‡‹๐“‡‹๐“‚ป แธฅ๊œฃ.y
“he is/has descended”
(Note here the .y rather than .w is an option because this is a 3ae-inf. verb.)

Meaning and tense

Originally the stative showed completed action (hence the term “old perfective“, since it had a perfective aspect). By Middle Egyptian, it shows a state of being, for both transitive and intransitive verbs: ๐“Šช๐“†‘โ€Œ๐“Šƒ๐“…ฑ๐“Šฎ ps.w can mean “it is cooked/baked” or even “he is cooked/baked” but not “he has cooked (something else)”.

Additionally, the stative does not indicate tense; the state described could be past, present, or future. As always, context is needed.

As a past tense

For intransitive verbs, the stative often retains its old sense of completed action: jj.kw m แธฅtp “I have come in peace”.

For transitive verbs, an English translation often requires the passive voice; Sinuhe tells us on his return to Egypt that rdj.kw r pr z๊œฃ-nswt “I was given to the house of a prince”. This makes sense; Sinuhe is in a state due to a completed action. Someone gave, and it has affected Sinuhe's state of being. If he had “done” the giving, the state of the thing he gave would have been affected more than his own.

One verb which, even when in the stative, has an active meaning when translated into English is rแธซ “know”, but that’s because the verb really means something like “have experience, learn”. So when the Coffin Texts say:

๐“‚‹๐“๐“œ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“‡‹โ€Œ๐“‚‹๐“ˆ–๐“ช๐“ฟ๐“ˆ– rแธซ.kj rnw.แนฏn
“I know your names”

… what it is saying is a really a state of being achieved through experience: “I have learned your names”.

Rarely a stative is used on a transitive verb other than rแธซ, but that’s usually in early Middle Kingdom autobiographical texts which are patterned after their Old Kingdom counterparts:

๐“…ฑ๐“‚ง๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“€€๐“‚‹๐“ˆ–๐“€€๐“‚‹๐“ƒ€๐“…ฑ๐“Œจ๐“‚‹๐“Šน wd.kw rn.j r bw แบ–r(j) nแนฏr
“I have set my name at the place where the god is”, lit. “the place under the god”

As a wish or command

The stative can function like an imperative: ๐“ท๐“‚‹โ€Œ๐“๐“ˆ๐“‚‹๐“‹ดโ€Œ๐“ˆ–๐“ฅ แธฅrj.t r.sn “be far from them!”

Subject of the stative

If the stative has a noun subject, it still requires its pronominal suffix, and the noun is placed before the stative. This is called the subject-stative construction: ๐“‡“โ€Œ๐“๐“ˆ–๐“‹นโ€Œ๐“ˆ–๐“๐“…ฑ nswt ๊œฅnแธซ.w “the king is alive”. The pronominal suffix must match the noun in gender and number.

The stative usually is written with a subject in front of it, even if it’s a pronominal subject; in such a case, it is introduced with a particle like jw or m.k:

๐“‡‹โ€Œ๐“…ฑ๐“†‘โ€Œ๐“‹นโ€Œ๐“ˆ–๐“๐“…ฑ jw.f ๊œฅnแธซ.w
“he is alive”
(suffix pronoun subject .f, because that goes with jw)

๐“…“โ€Œ๐“‚Ÿ๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑ๐“€€๐“‹นโ€Œ๐“ˆ–๐“๐“Žกโ€Œ๐“…ฑ m.k wj ๊œฅnแธซ.kw
“see, I am alive!”
(dependent pronoun subject wj, because that goes with m.k)

The most common cases where the stative does not have a subject in front of it are when it expresses wishes (see above) or in dependent clauses.

The section above on the use of the stative as a past tense with intransitive verbs and rแธซ applies to the subject-stative construction as well: jw.j rแธซ.kw rnw.แนฏn “I know your names”.

Negation

The subject-stative construction is seldom negated. Other verb forms (such as sแธm.n.f) are more often used in negations. But it can be negated with the negative sentence particle ๐“‚œ๐“ˆ– nn used at the start of the sentence in the same structure that m.k is used (above):

๐“‚œ๐“ˆ–๐“‡“๐“…ฑ๐“ƒนโ€Œ๐“ˆ– nn sw wn(.w)
“he does not exist”, lit. “he is not in the state of existing.”

The stative is only negated in the subject-stative construction, like the above example. nn ๊œฅnแธซ.w would not be used for “he is not alive”; it would have to be nn sw ๊œฅnแธซ.w (but would more likely use the sแธm.n.f form instead of the stative).

Questions

The subject-stative construction usually has jn jw at the beginning in questions:

๐“‡‹โ€Œโ€Œ๐“ˆ–โ€Œ๐“‡‹โ€Œ๐“…ฑ๐“†‘โ€Œ๐“๐“‚‹โ€Œ๐“†ต๐“€๐“‹นโ€Œ๐“ˆ–๐“๐“…ฑ jn jw.f tr ๊œฅnแธซ.w
“Is he really alive?”

Stative of adjective verbs

It would seem that there are two ways to make an adjectival statement of the form “X is (adjective)”, like “his mind was happy” (lit. “his heart was good”):

  1. as a sentence with adjectival predicate: nfr jb.f
  2. as a stative of the verb “(be) good”: jb.f nfr.w

The distinction is that the stative generally means an action was completed. So nfr jb.f simply states the condition: “his heart was good”. But the stative means that an action (that of being or becoming good) has been completed: “his heart became good, and was so”.

Proper names

If you know that the typical order of an Egyptian verbal clause is verb-subject-object, you may have wondered why a name meaning “Amun is content” is “Amenhotep” and not “Hotepamun”. The answer is the subject-stative construction:

๐“‡‹๐“ ๐“ˆ–๐“Šต๐“๐“Šช jmn แธฅtp = jmn แธฅtp(.w)
“Amun is content”

This carries the nuance of “becoming” described above, so the personal name doesn’t just say that Amun is content; it says that Amun has become content, implied to be because of the named person’s existence.