The Modal System of Earlier Egyptian Complement Clauses: A Study in Pragmatics in a Dead Language

The present work proposes a novel analysis of Complement Clauses in Earlier Egyptian language. Contrary to previous assumptions, the grammatical organisation of these constructions is shown to be based on differentiation between Realis and Irrealis modality.
The different types of complement clauses attested in Earlier Egyptian are surveyed utilising recent linguistic research on modality and pragmatics. The discussion is based on numerous examples from the ancient texts and on comparisons with many other languages. Emerging from this investigation is a coherent and principled system for expressing Realis and Irrealis meaning in this most ancient of written languages.
This book is of notable value to Egyptologists working with texts and to all those interested in modality, grammar, and cognition.

Sami Uljas, Ph.D. (2005) is a Research fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University. He is author of many articles on Ancient Egyptian, including Cairo Bowl lines 7-8 (GM 201/2004) and hpr.n and the genesis of auxiliaries (in press).