Traces of a Stative-Eventive Opposition in Ancient Egyptian. Rethinking Pseudoparticiple as Old Perfective

Elsa Oréal (1)

1 LLACAN - Langage, LAngues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire

Challenging the usual semantic characterisation of the "adjectival" or nfr sw predication, this paper shows that it originally functioned as a non-eventive, stative (vs. dynamic) predication rather than as an essential (vs. contigent) predication. Conversely, the traditional characterisation of the Pseudoparticiple with statal verbs as an alleged stative will be question- ed. This study thus claims that the Pseudoparticiple was initially a VS periphrastic conjugation specialized for dynamical/eventive predication, forming one and the same paradigm with the Old Perfective sDm + lexical subject (which is not a sDm=f). The real "stative" counterpart to this re-united Old Perfective paradigm appears to be the nfr sw predication. From a typological point of view, this suggests that the opposition between event and state may have played a crucial role in the Proto-Egyptian verbal system.

Mots clés: pseudoparticiple

Domaines: Linguistique

Elsa Oréal. Traces of a Stative-Eventive Opposition in Ancient Egyptian. Rethinking Pseudoparticiple as Old Perfective. Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 2010, 137 (2), pp.145-156. ⟨hal-00946207⟩