The Modal System of Earlier Egyptian Complement Clauses.

• Position: Book review

The Modal System of Earlier Egyptian Complement Clauses: A Study in Pragmatics in a Dead Language. By SAMI ULIAS. Probleme der Agyptologie, vol. 26. Leiden: BRILL, 2007. Pp. ix + 430. $196.

This book is about how object clauses ("complement" clauses) function in the first two of the five stages in the 4000-year history of ancient Egyptian, that is, Old and Middle Egyptian, together known as "earlier" Egyptian (ca. 2500 B.C.E.-1500 B.C.E.). Object clauses are of the type "that Jack had left" in "Jill knew that Jack had left" (p. 2). The interpretation proposed for object clauses also deeply affects the interpretation of the entire Old and Middle Egyptian verbal system. The work at hand shines by its clear expository style which evidences intimate acquaintance with all that has been said on object clauses and the verbal system in a history of research spanning more than a century. This transparency has the benefit of making instantly clear to the informed reader that the proposed analysis of object clauses and verb forms in earlier Egyptian is nowhere close to anything anyone has ever said before. About the following there can be no doubt: either the author is completely wrong or almost everyone else is. This assessment is not in itself a criticism. However, the chasm between what this book offers and everything that has come before is so deep that it deserves to be spotlighted right away. It also does not take much time to become cognizant of the fact that a single Big Idea dominates this entire work. A mass of examples is adduced in support of it. Countless references to articles and books are evaluated in light of it in a delicate tango of approval and rejection. Comparative evidence is cited from many other languages, including Alamblak, Bargam, Bemba, Caddo, Central Pomo. Fula, Kinyarwanda, Lango, and Mangarayi.

The book's dominant theme pertains to the contrast in meaning between object clauses introduced by ntt/wnt "that," as in jw.j rh.kw ntt [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]ht pw jpt-swt tp t[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]"(while?) I know that Karnak is a horizon on earth" (Urk. IV 364,1-2, cited as example [63] on p. 76), and object clauses expressed by bare verb forms, without auxiliaries and without the marker ntt/wnt, as by prr(.j) "that I go out" in jw grt wd.n hm.f prr(.j) r h[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]s[t tn] "His Majesty has ordered that I go out to this land" (Hammamat 113,10, cited as example [131] on p. 132). The author proposes that object clauses introduced by ntt/wnt denote "assertion" and those expressed by bare verb forms "non-assertion." The grammatical constructions expressing assertion are collectively called "realis." Those expressing non-assertion are called "irrealis."

No concept is more important to the book's argument than assertion. The counterpart, non-assertion, is simply the absence of assertion. It will therefore suffice to define assertion...