The Egyptian language with its written documentation spreading from the Early Bronze Age
(Ancient Egyptian) to Christian times (Coptic) has rarely been the object of typological
studies grammatical analysis mainly serving philological purposes. This volume offers now a
detailed analysis and a diachronic discussion of the non-verbal patterns of the Egyptian
language from the Pyramid Texts (Earlier Egyptian) to Coptic (Later Egyptian) based on an
extensive use of data especially for later phases. By providing a narrative contextualisation
and a linguistic glossing of all examples it addresses the needs not only of students of
Egyptian and Coptic but also of a linguistic readership. After an introduction into the basic
typological features of Egyptian the main book chapters address morphology syntax semantics
and pragmatics of the three non-verbal sentence types documented throughout the history of this
language: the adverbial sentence the nominal sentence and the adjectival sentence. These
patterns also appear in a variety of clausal environments and can be embedded in verbal
constructions. This book provides an ideal introduction into the study of Egyptian historical
grammar and an indispensable companion for philological reading.
