抄録
In Middle Egyptian, bipartite nominal A pw sentences such as R' pw (“He is Re'”) are very common. Furthermore, entire sentences can be embedded into these constructions (S pw-constructions). The purpose of this paper is to define the syntactic and semantic properties of the S pw-constructions by comparing them with those of the Japanese no da-constructions.
The following is a summary of the main conclusions in this paper.
(1) The S pw-constructions form a grammatical category corresponding syntactically and semantically to the Japanese no da-constructions, which express explanatory modality.
(2) The semantic functions of the S pw-constructions fall into four subdivisions.
i) The speaker/writer (S/W) presents a state of affairs described by the embedded sentence (Q) to the hearer/reader (H/R); Q is related to the preceding context (P).
ex. ir dd=f ny 'nh=f pw (Ebers 97 13)
Moshi kare-ga “ny” to iu naraba, kare-wa ikiru no da.
If he says “ny”, this means that he will live.
ii) S/W presents Q to H/R; Q is not related to P.
ex. s pw wn(w) (Peas. R1. 1)
(Katsute hitori no) otoko-ga ita no da.
There was (once) a man.
iii) S/W understands Q; Q is related to P.
ex. Then I heard a thunderclap.
ib. kwi w _??_ w pw n w _??_ d-wr (Sh. S. 57-59)
Watashi-wa, umi no nami na no da to kangaete imashita.I thought the cause was a wave of the sea.
iv) S/W understands Q; Q is not related to P.
ex. gm. n=i hf _??_ w pw iw=f m iit (Sh. S. 61-62)
Watashi-wa, hebi-ga yatte kite iru no da to kizukimashita.
I noticed that a snake was coming.
(3) The morph pw of the S pw-constructions is not an anaphoric demonstrative pronoun, but an expletive serving only to provide a nominal slot for embedding an entire sentence.
