PVsioSOA

Middle Egyptian word order is rather rigidly fixed. The grid contains eight slots labelled, in order, PVsioSOA which reflect the expected word order. An additional area for Notes is appended following the slots.

Grid overview

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
Particles	Verbals	pronominal subjects	pronominal indirect objects	pronominal objects	Nominal Subjects	Nominal Objects	Adjuncts	Notes
Particles, including enclitic particles	see definition of verbal	any pronouns acting as the subject	any prepositional phrase with pronominal objects acting as the indirect object	any pronouns acting as the direct object	see definition of nominal	see definition of nominal	All remaining words in the sentence.	Basic definitions
						Can include structure to be expanded further	Can include structure to be expanded further	Additional notes

DEFINITION: Verbal:

A verbal is any word acting as the verb in a sentence or clause. A verbal can be a "finite" verb, an infinitive acting verbally, or a participle acting verbally. It can also be a prepositional phrase acting verbally.

DEFINITION: Nominal:

A nominal is any word or phrase which can act like a noun. It includes nouns, adjectives, participles, and infinitives (the English gerunds would fit here, too). Pronouns are NOT included in this definition.

DEFINITION: Adjunct:

Most of what goes in the 'A' slot is elsewhere usually called "adverbial". In fact, this slot holds words which contain additional information. In Egyptian, that will be everything that hasn't already been put in another slot.

DEFINITION: Clause:

There are four types of sentences in Egyptian, which means that there are four types of clauses:

• noun sentences - format: A is B
• adjectival sentences - format: zero-grade adjective followed by noun
• prepositional sentences - format: noun followed by prepostional phrase
• sentences with verbs

Each of these four types can be an initial clause or a subsequent clause.

Each line on the grid contains a clause and all clauses subsequent to it. These subsequent clauses will appear in the O or A slots along with, but subsequent to, O and A belonging to the main clause on the line.

PROCEDURE:

Almost all Middle Egyptian sentences maintain strict word order. Exceptions include the occasional enclitic particle and the occasional "fronted" phrase or clause placed at the start of the sentence for emphasis. Therefore, you can almost allways simply put the words into the grid in the order in which you encounter them. Their position in the grid will help you determine what their function is in the sentence. The grid will often eliminate some possibilities.

Every word in the sentence goes into some slot in the first line of the grid.
Assuming there are no out of sequence enclitic particles or phrases fronted for emphasis, the words go into the grid in the same order as in the sentence. This has a tendency to fill up the 'O' slot in the first line and especially the 'A' slot. Don't worry about that.
Keep in mind that no clause will contain elements for every slot in the grid. Every line will have one or more empty slots.

Every subsequent line in the grid, if there are any, will be an expansion of items in the 'O' or 'A' slots. Each line in the grid starts with the first element of a clause. This element is often a "verbal", i.e., a word that is not necessarily a finite verb but certainly one which has verbal quality in its own clause. See the definition of "verbal" above.
But keep in mind that Egyptian clauses can begin with non-verbal elements.
Basically, a new clause (a new line in the grid) contains all the words starting with any element which can be placed earlier in the grid than its placement in the line above.
Keep in mind that every clause follows the same rigid word order and its components are placed in their respective slots in order.

Special instances are best illustrated with specific examples:

Example 1 - 'iw' + verbal):

'iw smA.n.f mAw 7 m stt m km n At'
"He killed 7 lions while shooting in the blink of an eye"

The sentence pattern is 'iw' + verb, so we fill in the grid this way:

'iw smA.n.f mAw 7 m stt m km n At'

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
iw	smA.n	.f				mAw 7	m stt m km n At	'A' slot needs expansion
	m stt						m km n At	Prepositional phrase acting as a verb

1) 'iw' is a particle followed by a past tense verb. 'iw' goes in the 'P' slot and the verb + past tense marker goes in the 'V' slot.

2) The subject of the verb is the suffix pronoun '.f'. It goes in the 's' slot. In almost all cases if there is an item in the 's' slot there won't be one in the 'S' slot. Similarly for the 'o' and 'O' slots.

3) The next two words 'mAw 7' are nominal. Since this is a different item than the subject, there cannot be anything in the 'S' slot, they must go in the 'O' slot where it is clear that they consititute the direct object of the verb.

4) The rest of the sentence must go in the 'A' slot. Noticing that 'm stt' is formed of a preposition + infinitive, a prepositional phrase normally left in the 'A' slot is really a verbal, as are all prepositional phrases beginning with 'Hr', 'r', and 'm' followed by infintives. As a verbal it would fit into the 'V' slot in its own subsequent clause, which precedes the 'A' slot it occupies in the intial clause. So we can expand the 'A' slot into its own line.

5) In the expansion process, we still take the words in the order in which they appear.

6) The rest of the sentence consists of two more prepositional phrases. Like 'm stt', they begin with the preposition 'm', but because the objects of the prepositions are straightforward nouns, not infinitives, they must simply be prepositional phrases and are put in the 'A' slot.

7) There are no remaining elements which could precede the last element in the last line, so we are finished with this grid.

8) The grid does not absolve you from further analyzing the verbals for tense and mood. But it helps you identify them and the other syntactical elements of a Middle Egyptian Sentence.

Example 2: 'iw' + subject + verb:

'iw.i m Hm nTr xm.f dpt nt Dw'
"I am a priest who does not know the taste of evil" (i.e.: "has not experienced evil")

iw.i m Hm nTr xm.f dpt nt Dw'

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
	iw	.i					m Hm nTr xm.f dpt nt Dw	'xm.f' starts a new clause, so it goes into 'V' on the second line
	xm	.f				dpt nt Dw

You can diagram the start of the sentence in either of two ways:
a) As it is above, this time treating 'iw' as a verbal with a pronominal subject.
b) If you put 'iw' in the 'P' slot, it's probably less correct than #a) above but it reflects its status as something less than fully verbal.
c) Alternatively you could smear the difference:

iw.i m Hm nTr xm.f dpt nt Dw'

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
iw		.i					m Hm nTr xm.f dpt nt Dw
	xm	.f				dpt nt Dw

A difficulty is figuring out where how to find the proper spot, if there is any, for expansion in the 'A' slot. First, we don't expect to find another particle. If we do, it's almost certainly the start of a new sentence.
After that we can be guided by looking for items which appear in the same VsioSOA order as the introductory clause.
In the case above, we find a verbal in 'xm.f'. We don't find a verbal in 'm Hm' because 'Hm' is not an infinitive. So this must be a prepositional phrase, an ' m of acquired status' and it remains in the 'A' slot.
Following 'xm.f' is dpt nt Dw. This is a nominal phrase, so it can't go in the 'A' slot, nor can it go in the 'S' slot because it is not the same item as the subject. It must the direct object, 'O' slot.
Always keep in mind that subsequent clauses will maintain the same VsioSOA order.

Example 3: Verbs as direct objects:

Following is a perfect example of one method of identifing a prospective verb:
'iw Dd.n.i pr.i'
"I said I would go (forth)"

iw Dd.n.i pr.i

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
iw	Dd.n	.i				pr.i

The issue is 'pr.i'. Clearly a verb with a suffix pronoun. But it is a "circumstantial" clause? The answer is that 'Dd' is a transitive verb, it wants a direct object. "I would go" is what I said, so it's the direct object and it goes in the 'O' slot.

There really is no need to expand this, because all that would happen in the second row of the grid would be that 'pr.i' would now appear in the 'V' slot.

Example 4: Verbs as direct objects (more):

The next example of this is a bit harder. The important point here is that language is often truncated - words that should be there are left out because they can be easily (at least from the speaker's point of view) inferred. Such a case is an imperative usage like this one:

'Ds.k irf Hr-dd.f sA.i int{w}.k n.i sw'
"Then you yourself, Hordedef, my son, should bring him to me."

The words that are commonly left out (ellipsed) in this type of phrasing, be it in Egyptian or in English are: "I order..."
So the whole sentence really is "Then I order that you, yourself, Hordedef, my son, should bring him to me.

"Order" is another one of those verbs that takes a direct object. What is it that is being ordered? Everything after the word "order". So everything after that word goes in the 'O' slot.

*wD.i irf Ds.k Hr-dd.f sA.i int.k n.i sw

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
irf	*wD	*.i				Ds.k irf Hr-dd.f sA.i int.k n.i sw		enclitic particle
	int	.k	n.i	sw

The starred items represent ellipsed items. You could just write "ellipsis" in the grid to show why you are putting the rest of the words in the 'O' slot. We also note that irf is an enclitic particle which shows why it's out of the normal word sequence here.

How do we find any candidates for inclusion in line two of the grid? First of all, we look for grammatical units such as noun clauses, prepositional phrases, best of all, verbs. The first such unit which would, on a subsequent line, occur earlier than the slot it's in, is the candidate. In other words, it should be the first element in it's own clause. Just keep in mind that Egyptian clauses can be non-verbal.
In this case, 'Ds.k Hr-dd.f sA.i' is a noun phrase, all of these words are in apposition to each other. They all refer to Hordedef. So none of them can be a candidate for a second line.
After that we find a verb 'int.k'. Bingo. This would come before the 'O' and once the second line is formed and 'int.k' is put in the 'V' slot, we see how the rest of the sentence falls into place.

Example 5: Verbs as Adjuncts:

Statives provide an interesting situation. Here's an example:
'iw.f aHa(w) Hr wAt'
"He was standing on the road"

iw.f aHa(w) Hr wAt

P	V	s	i	o	S	O	A	NOTES
	iw	.f					aHa(w) Hr wAt
	aHa	(w)					Hr wAt

The stative originally has to go into the 'A' slot, because the 'V' is already taken by 'iw' and, not being a pronoun or a nominal, it can't go into any of the slots before the 'A'. This makes it look to Hoch like it's adverbial. I don't really like calling things like this "adverbs" so it's an adjunct, it's additional information referring to the subject which does not apply to the verb.
Of course, because its basic nature is verbal, that is to say: it starts its own clause, it also starts off the second line, as diagrammed above.