Conjunction, Contiguity, Contingency: On Relationships Between Events in the Egyptian and Coptic Verbal Systems

Language is in large part about the description of events occurring in the world around us. Relationships of different sorts between those events can be expressed by specific verb forms - or by syntactic constructions involving specific verb forms. The present study examines this facet of the Egyptian and Coptic verbal systems in isolation, singling out three types of relationships between events and the linguistic means by which they are expressed. This book comprises three chapters on the grammar of hieroglyphic Egyptian and its linear descendant, Coptic, covering more than 3000 years of language history. The initial chapter studies the verb form called "conjunctive", asserting that the function of the conjunctive is to "con-join" a chain of two or more events into a single - though compound - notion. The second chapter shows how a certain syntactic construction can be used to refer to events that are contiguous - that is, events that succeed one another rapidly in time. The final chapter examines verb forms that refer to events whose occurrence is contingent on the occurrence of other events implied or explicitly mentioned in the context. The three grammatical phenomena are respectively labeled conjunction, contiguity, and contingency. The first work in which the expression of relationships between events is studied in isolation as an important characteristic of the Egyptian and Coptic verbal systems, this study constitutes a significant advancement in our understanding of the ancient language of Egypt. It will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Egyptology, Coptology, and the Ancient Near East, as well as linguists, Byzantinists, and classicists.