Agent-Less Indirect Adjectival Verb Forms in Egyptian and Arabic: The Case of JRRW N. F and MAFʿŪL LAHU, "for Whom One Acts"

Abstract

A striking characteristic of earlier - that is, Old and Middle, and to some extent also Late - Egyptian, as opposed to Demotic and Coptic, is the high incidence of verb forms exhibiting a changeable ending as to gender and number - that is, an adjectival ending - referring to an entity involved in the event expressed by the verb form. In later Egyptian, such forms became entirely obsolete. One type of Egyptian adjectival verb form, the agent-less indirect type, has often been compared, with much controversy, with the Arabic syntagm involving adjectival verb forms called na c t sababi, which is also indirect, but not always agent-less. This paper addresses the issue of the similarity of the Egyptian and Arabic constructions. In this endeavor, it is important to create a basis for comparison by clearly delineating the two phenomena in their respective languages. The two should only be compared in as far as they overlap