The Radial Structure of Some Middle Egyptian Prepositions

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R. N yo rd: Radial Structure of Middle Egyptian Prepositions

27

RUNE NYORD

The Radial Structure of Some Middle Egyptian Prepositions*

O. Introduction A. H. Gardiner's famous Egyptian Grammar includes an extremely convenient catalogue of Middle Egyptian prepositions, which lists, classifies and labels the usages of each individual preposition in the manner of grammars of the classical languages 1. While convenient as a reference, the disadvantage of such an approach is that each Egyptian word is presented as a highly fragmented whole, the unity of which in the ancient language appears to be pure convention. On the other hand, when browsing through Gardiner's categories, it is clear that some of the different senses of a preposition are related, and with a certain amount of background knowledge of the language, one would also readily concede that they are not all of equal frequency or importance. In contrast to the traditional listing of different meanings of a preposition stands the cognitive linguistic view of words as marking conceptual categories organized according to certain 2 general principles • In this view, a preposition

* I am grateful to Sami Uljas for a number of useful comments and suggestions. 3 1 GEG §§162ff, similarly elsewhere, e.g. James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian. An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, Cambridge 2000, 83-88. 2 The major work, with a number of illustrative examples, is still George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, Chicago 1987. This view of category structure has played an important role in the study of the Egyptian writing system carried out by Orly Goldwasser and her co-workers in the Gattinger Orientforschungen IV/38 subseries (the most recent monograph being Racheli Shalomi-Hen, The Writing of Gods. The Evolution of Divine Classifiers in the Old Kingdom, [= Gattinger Orientforschungen IV/38,4], Wiesbaden 2006). A few remarks on the usability of this perspective in the study of non-linguistic classification has been made in Rune Nyord, The Body in the Hymns to the Coffin Sides, in: Chronique d'Egypte 82

marks a category of relations between entltles, and each sense of the preposition would be expected to have semantic connections to one or more of the other members of the category. Very often, conceptual categories are organized around a prototype which stands out as particularly good examples of members of the category 3 in question • An often-cited example is the category BIRD, of which a member like robin is usually judged to be a more representative example than chicken or ostrich4. The latter two are obviously members of the category and clearly related in various ways to more central members, however. From the prototype which consists of central members of a category, the category can be extended by means of various principles connecting the members to each other, a process known as chaininl For example, the Japanese numeral classifier hon C$:) marks prototypically long, thin objects, but has among its extensions a "hit" in a (2007), 8 f., and in relation to Egyptian art, see Paul J. Frandsen, On Categorization and Metaphorical Structuring: Some Remarks on Egyptian Art and Language, in: Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (1997), 79 ff. In research on the ancient Egyptian language and its categories, the cognitive linguistic approach has been advocated by Mark Collier, Grounding, Cognition and Metaphor in the Grammar of Middle Egyptian, in: Lingua Aegyptia 4 (1994),57-87, where grammaticalization is studied inter alia in terms of polysemy, but this theoretical framework has not played a major role in the study of the ancient Egyptian language, unlike in linguistics more generally. 3 See the overview of "prototype effects" in Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, 40-46. 4 E.g. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 41. 5 Compare also the discussion of this phenomenon in Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites, Stanford 1987,442-445 and the further references given at id., Cognitive Grammar. A Basic Introduction, Oxford 2008,37 n. 8.

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R. Nyord: Radial Structure of Middle Egyptian Prepositions

baseball game, where the ball's trajectory has a typical hon-shape connecting it to the center of the category, though it does not belong to the class of solid objects constituting the prototypi6 cal members • Another basic tenet of cognitive linguistics which will be of relevance for the current study is that meaning is essentially embodied. In this view, conceptual organization is intimately connected to bodily experience, which accordingly plays a role of paramount importance in human cognition. The embodied perspective on cognition has a number of important entailments of which we will confine ourselves to introducing a few of direct relevance to the study of Egyptian •• 7 prepOSitions . First, prototypes have a tendency to be formed not by abstract, propositional defmitions stating necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather according to what Lakoff refers to as 'interactional properties', characterized as "the result of our interactions as part of our physical and cultural environments given our bodies and our cognitive apparatus. Such interactional properties form clusters in our experience, and prototype and basic-level structure can reflect such clusterings"s. Secondly, research has shown that human cognition is fundamentally structured by basic entities known as 'image schemata,9. These schemata are basic, preconceptual formations, which "emerge as meaningful structures for us chiefly at the level of our bodily movements 6 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 104-105. 7 For a more detailed discussion with references, see Rune N yord, Breathing Flesh. Conceptions of the Body in the Ancient Egyptian Coffm Texts, Copenhagen, (= Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications 37), Co~enhagen 2009, ch. 1. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 51 (emphasis in original). 9 See especially Mark] ohnson, The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reasoning, Chicago 1987, passim, and Beate Hampe (ed.), From Perception to Meaning. Image Schemas in Cognitive Lingustics (= Cognitive Linguistics Research 29), Berlin 2005, passim. For further references, see Nyord, Breathing Flesh, 10-19. A brief introduction to the notion has been given in id., in: Chronique d'Egypte 82 (2007), 13-15.

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through space, our manipulation of objects, and our perceptual interactions"lO. Such schemata thus arise as invariances from embodied experience and accordingly contain very little structure on their own, but play a very important role by giving structure to our concepts. Examples of important image schemata include such preconceptual notions as FORCE, CONTAINMENT and PATH, of which the latter two will be seen to play an important role in structuring the categories marked by the Egyptian prepositions m and r. Thirdly, image schemata and other effects of embodied experience do not merely play a role in our understanding of the physical environment, but are also indispensable in the structuring of more abstract concepts that would appear at first to have little to do with embodied experience. This is made possible by the important ll principle of metaphorical structuring • Of particular importance in the present connection are the so-called 'ontological metaphors', which allow us to conceptualize abstract, indiscrete or otherwise intangible phenomena as concrete entities or substances 12. In the words of Lakoff and Johnson, "our experiences with physical objects (especially our own bodies) provide the basis for an extraordinarily wide variety of ontological metaphors, that is, ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and substances,,13. As an English example of an ontological metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson give THE MIND IS A MACHINE (based on the more general metaphor THE MIND IS AN ENTITY, which is in fact a metaphor, though it might not immediately strike the language user as such because of the ubiquity of ontological metaphors) 14. Here, a highly intangible notion is proohnson, The Body in the Mind, 29. Introductions to this phenomenon can be found e.g. in George Lakoff and Mark] ohnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago and London 1980 and Zoltan Kovecses, Metaphor. A Practical Introduction, Oxford and New York 2002. See also the introduction to the field in Nyord, Breathing Flesh, 6-35. 12 Lakoff and] ohnson, Metaphors We Live By, 25-32; Kovecses, Metaphor, 34f. 13 Lakoff and] ohnson, Metaphors We Live By, 25. 14 Lakoff and] ohnson, Metaphors We Live By, 27. 10 ]

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vided metaphorically with an ontological status which allows us to make inferences and other cognitive operations which would otherwise be impossible. Since linguistic structure reflects conceptual structure, we find the conceptual metaphor in linguistic expressions such as "I'm a little rusty today", which is immediately understood as a reference to the sub-standard functioning of the speaker's mind because of its ontological status as a machine which does not work properly when rusty. Before turning to the analysis of the important Egyptian prepositions m and r, we need to introduce one final set of terms useful for analyzing what Langacker terms "atemporal relations", which covers inter alia the use of preposi15 tions . In such relations, important roles are played by the trq/ector (abbreviated tr) and the landmark (1m). The former is defined as the "figure within a relational proftle,,16 and corresponds to what is sometimes referred to otherwise as the "reference noun", i.e. the entity which the preposition is used to situate vis-a.-vis the prepositional object. The latter is referred to correspondingly in Langacker's cognitive grammar as the landmark, "so called because they are naturally viewed (in prototypical instances) as providing points of reference for locating the trajector,,17. Having now briefly introduced some important theoretical notions, we will turn our attention to the two highly frequent Egyptian prepositions m and r. On the basis of the cognitive linguistic theoretical framework just outlined, the various usages of the prepositions (as listed by Gardiner and others) will be analyzed with the aim of suggesting a plausible internal structure of the conceptual category marked by the prepositions.

15 Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I, ch. 6. See now also id., Cognitive Grammar, 70-73. 16 Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I, 217. 17 Ibid.

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1. The preposition m. 1.1 Static meaning By far the most frequent use of this preposition is the one which Gardiner labels "of place". At the same time, the situation where one entity is located inside another is experientially highly salient, corresponding to the image schema of CONTAINMENT, which forms the basis of all relations where one entity is conceptualized as 18 being located inside another :

Together, these facts make the locative usage of the preposition a very likely candidate for the prototype of the category it denotes. The central use of the preposition would thus be cases of CONTAINMENT where the landmark (i.e. the CONTAINER) is constituted by a physical object with clear boundaries: (1)

iw=fm ('t, "It (Sc. a sack of grain) is in a room"

(2)

brwt=k m pr=k, " ... while your possessions are

(3)

in your house" (peasant B1, 124) ib=i m llt=i, " ... my interior is in my torso" (CT IV, 57 f. [304]).

(Westcar 11,24)

The most immediate extension is found when the object of the preposition is not a discretely bounded entity, but one which is still nonetheless conceptualized as a CONTAINER: iw sdw= k m sat, ''Your plots of land are in the countryside" (peasant B2, 65)

(4)

In this example, unlike the previous three, the object of the preposition is not from the outset one with a clear-cut boundary, but the conceptualization imposed by the preposition m means

Johnson, The Body in the Mind, 30ff. For the schema (called "the container/contained relation") as a central structure in prepositions compare also the study of French "dans/hors de" in Claude Vandeloise, Spatial Prepositions. A Case Study from French (trans. R. K. Bosch), Chicago 1991, ch. 13. 18

CONTAINER

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R. Nyord: Radial Structure of Midclle Egyptian Prepositions

that the countryside is understood here as a the plots. A number of further usages are established by metaphorical projection of the basic CONTAINMENT schema. Rather than referring literally to spatial CONTAINERS, these examples make use of one or more of a range of basic metaphors, often ones known from modern European languages as well as Middle Egyptian. The first of these is the metaphor UNITS OF TIME ARE CONTAINERS (a specification of the more general and probably universal TIME IS SPACE), corresponding to Gardiner's "m of time"! 9: CONTAINER for

(5)

pressed by certain verbs (mainly verbs of movement) can also be included in the category of STATES capable of being conceptualized as CONTAINERS:

(10)

irt(y)=sn wrr-mdw !Jft=1 m hrw pn njr, "00. those who would have judgment against you on this perfect day" (CT I, lOf [3]) dr sty bna m smw, "Getting rid of the smell of fish in the summer" (pHearst 2,17 [31])

(6)

(7)

mt wi m hJt r kmt, "Look, I am on my way down to Egypt" (peasant R 1, 2-3)

By means of the already-mentioned metaphor the preposition acquires its conjunction-like usage before finite verbs where it signifies primarily concomitance in a temporal or causal sense: EVENTS ARE OBJECTS,

(11)

mi sbmt m mpt Bdt, " ... like Sakhmet in a year 2 of plague" (Sinuhe AOS 26 )

Often, this metaphor is combined with another frequent projection, namely EVENTS ARE 2 OBJECTS !, so that the contents of the time unit can be an event or state of affairs instead of, as in (5), an object or person:

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m mrr=k m3=i snb.kwi swdFk sw '3, "As you wish to see me sound, you must delay him here" (peasant B1, 109 -10)

A related metaphor accounts for the usage that Gardiner labeled the "m of predication,,23. Again in this case the metaphor itself is crossculturally frequent, namely that of CATEGORIES 24 ARE CONTAINERS • By means of this metaphor, the "m of predication" can be analyzed as construing a situation in which a particular entity is ascribed to a particular category: (12)

mk tw m minw, "Look, you are (in the category of) a herdsman" (peasant B1, 208)

Other metaphorical projections account for some further usages of the preposition. Thus, the metaphor (MENTAL AND PHYSICAL) STATES 22 ARE CONTAINERS leads to Gardiner's "m of state". Here, the person or object to which the particular state applies is conceptualized as being CONTAINED within the state:

Often this usage is found where the noun following the preposition has the character not of a fixed category, but rather of a decidedly ad hoc one:

(8)

Some of the cases labeled by Gardiner as examples of the "m of manner', notably m m?'t, "in truth" should probably be analyzed as examples of the STATES ARE CONTAINERS metaphor, while

P't m imw, "... the elite were in mourning" (Sinuhe R 10-11) (i)n 'nb=ln wg3=ln snb=ln m 1J.zt nt mnlW, "Are you alive, sound and healthy in the favour of Montu?" (Heqanakht 2, 1)

(9)

The use of m + infinitive to express an ongoing action also belongs here, as the actions exGEG § 162,2. Corresponding to B 44-45, but the other manuscripts in which the passage is extant use the noun rnpt absolutely, without the preposition m. A similar distribution between the other manuscripts is found in B 19-20 = AOS 17. 21 Cf. Kovecses, Metaphor, 35. 22 Cf. English "in love" etc., Kovecses, Metaphor, 35. 19

20

(13)

ib=i m sn-nw=i, "00. my heart being (in the category of) my companion" (Shipwrecked Sailor 42)

23 Cf. the most recent discussion of this usage of the preposition by Foy D. Scalf, "Statements of Identity and the m of Predication", in: Lingua Aegyptia 16 (2008), 135-151, where it is argued that this use of the preposition in non-verbal sentences (he excludes uses with verbs as "nothing other than verb-preposition idioms which are common in every language", p. 146) is motivated vis-a-vis nominal sentence patterns for purely syntactic reasons. For the present examination of the semantic structure of the preposition m, the essential correctness of this hypothesis is inconsequential. 24 Cf. Johnson, The Body in the Mind, 39f.

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others, such as m m3wt, "anew" and m mitt, "likewise" can be analyzed along with the examples of the "m of predication" as "being something new" and "being a similar thing", respectively

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"complex relationship", as opposed to the 27 "simplex relationships" examined so far : 1m

(CATEGORIES ARE CONTAINERS).

1.2 Dynamic meaning This ends the series of usages based on the simple CONTAINER schema as understood literally or projected metaphorically. So far, all of the examples have been static ones which have simply placed an entity within the boundaries of a CONTAINER. Another important series of usages is based instead on a dynamic potential residing 25 in the preposition , where, combined with the image-schema PATH (the schema of an entity moving from a source along a path to a goal)26, it designates movement from within the boundaries of the CONTAINER to the outside. This corresponds in the terminology of Langacker to a

25 Pace R. Hannig, Huang R. F. and Ling Hu R. M., A note on the use of Egyptian prepositions, in: Journal of Ancient Civilizations 1 (1986),145-147 who argue that "[t]he preposition m means basically 'in' and not 'from, out of. This meaning is attributed to m only, because of the difference in the construction: therefore it is a translational meaning, but not a meaning of the word m" (emphasis in original). The point that in Egyptian - in contrast to English or German - the "reference nomen", i.e. the trajector in the terminology of this paper, usually remains the same whether the preposition is used in a verbal or non-verbal sentence, is well taken. However, the remarks quoted refer to an artificially constructed example, which has in common with all the other examples cited in the paper that no movement of the trajector vis-a-vis the landmark is envisaged in the Egyptian construction (with the possible exception of the example with ini m on p. 147, but this can be analyzed either way). When such a movement is expressed, it becomes difficult to apply the analysis put forward by Hannig et al. Thus, examples like those quoted in (14) and (15) do not merely locate the trajector "in" the landmark, which would make the expression mean something like "Coming forth in(side) the fish-trap" (contrast example (25) below, where the preposition does retain its static meaning with a verb of movement), but rather expresses a change in status from being inside to being outside the CONTAINER, a meaning which the preposition is evidently capable of covering in Egyptian. 26 Johnson, The Body in the Mind, 113-117.

This is most clear when the preposltlon is used with verbs in the cases labeled "m of separation" by Gardiner. We should note that since the central meaning of the category has been seen to be a basic CONTAINER schema, this is probably still the main sense in the dynamic use of the preposition, so that movement out of a CONTAINER is to be understood rather than separa. more genera11y28 : tlon (14) (15)

ky rj n prt m issyt, "Another spell for getting out of the fish-trap" (CT VI, 34a [477]) ii. n=f m min m iw nsrsr, "He has come today from (lout of) the Island of Fire" (CT I, 117b [33])

Just as with the static usage, this literal application of the CONTAINER schema gives rise to a series of further usages by means of metaphorical projections. The most immediate of these make use of a metaphor already mentioned above, namely CATEGORIES ARE CONTAINERS. In this use, the preposition thus comes to designate a movement out of a category, the so-called partitive use: (16)

(17)

hj in im=f, "Go down and get (some) of it" (Westcar 11, 25) ink 8j w'b mi w' im=f.n nb, "I am the son of a w'b-priest like every one of you" (Siut I, 288)

In these cases, the preposition marks a category of which something is taken out, thus re-

Langacker, Cognitive Grammar, 117 f. Gardiner mentions further the verb B' in this connection, and possibly the etymology of the compound preposition §5'-m, "beginning from" should be analyzed in parallel with the examples cited here. Usually when that verb occurs with the preposition m, however, it appears to mean "begin with" rather than "begin from" (e.g. Heqanakht 2, 27-28, sj'w m wnm rm! '3, "They have started eating humans here''), which is probably to be analyzed as the partitive use of the preposition discussed below, used here to indicate that the action has not been completed. 27 28

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sulting in a PART-WHOLE relation • The suggested origin in a CONTAINER + PATH schema means that the partitive use becomes closely related to the elative one which prototypically expresses precisely movement out of a CONTAINER, and example (17) is already close to uses marked by the elative in other languages. The elative use can be taken even further by ' £ocus ,,30. H ere, th e process 1mown as " end -Polnt instead of expressing a movement out of a category as being underway, the preposition is used to designate that movement as completed, thus locating the trajector completely outside the landmark. The clearest example is with the expression sw m, "empty of'. Here, the preposition can be understood as placing the potential CONTAINER (trajector) firmly outside the category denoted by the landmark rather in the manner of English expressions like "run out of something" or "exempt from something": (18)

sgr r ssp sw m h~wt, " ... one who sleeps till dawn, devoid of illness" (Westcar 7, 18-19)

sists of either a mass noun or a count noun in pluraL When the landmark is designated by units of time, this relationship is rather abstract, but at the same time quite close to the clear partitive and elative examples just mentioned: (19)

29 It has been cogently argued, most recently by Jean Winand, Temps et aspect en egyptien. Une approche semantique (= Probleme der Agyptologie 25), Leiden and Boston 2006, 137 ff, that this partitive (and occasionally elative) usage is the origin of the apparent employment of phrases with the preposition m as an alternative to direct object constructions. This meaning is probably also the explanation for the special use of the preposition with body parts, predominantly with the word Ct, "body part", pointed out by R. O. Faulkner, A Coffin Text Miscellany, in: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 68 (1982), 29, as the examples seem to exhibit a special tendency to be used of limbs separated from the body. Winfried Barta, Zur Apposition vom Typ AmB, in: Gottinger Miszellen 109 (1989), 17-19, suggests a different analysis of such examples as elliptic appositions. 30 Cf. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 423 f. and 440 f. 31 GEG § 162, 6. 32 It is also possible to apply an alternative analysis according to which the "m of kind' is instead used to express belonging to a category, and thus related rather with the static use of the preposition in the "m of predication".

ist nsw km.n=f ~~~w=f m rnpwt ~s~t nfrw, "Now, the king had completed his period of many good years" (Urk. N, 895, 14)

In this case, the metaphor UNITS OF TIME ARE CONTAINERS makes it possible to express the period completed by the king as being "made of' or probably originally "taken from" the "many good years" constituting the landmark in this expression. In a similar way, the preposition can be used of more physical substances, again most likely expressing that the trajector is literally "taken from" and thus "made of' the material identified as the landmark (MATERIALS ARE CONTAINERS):

(20)

3

As Gardiner notes \ such usages are closely related to the "m of kind', where the category from which the trajector is said to be taken is a material or substance out of which the trajector 32 is made • Correspondingly, the landmark con-

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iw bwsw n=i mr m inr m-qjb mrw, "A pyramid of stone was constructed for me in the midst of the pyramids" (Sinuhe B 300-301)

Perhaps the most difficult usages to derive from the basic meaning of the preposition are those labeled by Gardiner "m of instrument' and "m of concomitance,,33. In the light of the basic meaning of the preposition and its derivations as suggested above, it is to be expected that these uses might also be derived from the basic CONTAINER schema, perhaps in the dynamic use of the preposition where it is combined with the 34 PATH schema • From this perspective, it may be suggested that the instrumental use can be derived from the dynamic meaning "out of' just discussed, in the sense that the completed action exists as a potential emerging from the instrument (prototypically physical force being trans-

GEG § 162,7 and 7a. The notion of on action being carried out with an instrument is likely in itself to be a conceptual primitive or in the words of Langacker (Cognitive Grammar, p. 355-357) a "conceptual archetype", and thus probably not immediately derivative of the image schemata suggested. What is discussed here is merely the possible motivations for including this notion in the Egyptian category m. 33

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ferred from the agent to the patient)35, rather like the spatial metaphor underlying the English instrumental use of the preposition "through,,36: (21)

S5t ktt int n= i m ss~, "... a little daughter whom I acquired through prayer" (Shipwrecked Sailor 129)

In this analysis, the daughter (or perhaps rather the acquisition) is conceptualized as having resided as a potential inside the CONTAINER metaphorically constituted by the prayer, and subsequently emerging when the action is fulfilled and brought to fruition. Langacker sketches such instrumental expressions in the following way, with the instrument in the middle as an intermediary point between the subject and the object in an "action chain" conceived as 37 a PATH:

35 Cf. the analysis of the Russian instrumental case as prototypically marking the instrument as a conduit for energy flow in Michael B. Smith, From Instrument to Irrealis: Motivating Some Grammaticalized Senses of the Russian Instrumental, in: Katarzyna Dziwirek, Herbert Coats, and Cynthia M. Vakareliyska (eds.), Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Seattle Meeting 1998 (= Michigan Slavic Materials 44), Ann Arbor 1999, 413-433, based on Langacker's "action chain" model cited in the preceding note. 36 With the Semitic cognates (-J b) of the Egyptian preposition, a basic meaning of "near" or "touching" is sometimes assumed to be the basis of the instrumental use of the preposition ~e.g. E. Kautzsch (ed.), Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (trans. A. E. Cowley), Oxford 1910,380 §119n-o; Carl Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, vol. II, Berlin 1913, 364f. § 237e-f), but such a meaning does not appear to be an independent part of the Egyptian category m. However, if idiomatic expressions such as m/:t m, "seize" were to be interpreted as evidence of a meaning as "touching", and the "m of concomitancl!' discussed below could be interpreted as vestiges of a meaning "near", then as an alternative interpretation, a parallel line of extension may be suggested to the one outlined in the two works on Semitic just quoted: CONTAINER > **NEAR > *CONTACT >

INSTRUMENT. 37 Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume II: Descriptive Application, Stanford 1991,404, fig. 9.3b.

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The same analysis may be applied to more concrete examples as well: (22)

(23)

nsb=i !:t