Éléments de la terminologie du temps en égyptien ancien. Une étude de sémantique lexicale en diachronie

Éléments de la terminologie du temps dans les textes égyptiens (de l’Ancien Empire à la Troisième Période Intermédiaire). Étude d’un réseau sémantique en diachronie.

Elements of the time terminology in Egyptian texts (from the Old Kingdom until the Third Intermediate Period). Study of a semantic network in diachrony.

This book has a double scope: first, bringing a contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the time conceptions in Ancient Egypt through a lexical study and, second, contributing to the definition of a methodological frame for lexical semantics in Ancient Egyptian.
In the introduction, the reader will find a state of the art from the point of view of time-related studies in Egyptology, lexical semantics studies, and classifiers studies (0.1.). The aims of the study are then detailed, and so are the methodological steps applied. These latter consider the specificities of the Egyptian language, some relevant methodological elements from general linguistics, and some recent proposals suggested in contemporary research on Ancient Egyptian lexical semantics. The theoretical steps applied in the frame of the semasiological analysis are the following ones:

- systematic gathering of the attestations of each lexeme within the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae, the Ramses database and the corpus of the Coffin texts,
- analysis of the distribution of the attestations in diachrony and by textual genre,
- analysis of each lexeme according to four complementary points of view: graphematic, phonematic, syntagmatic and semantic,
- application of a distributional model for the analysis of the interactions between the temporal lexeme and its co(n)textual environment,
- execution of a componential analysis for each sememe identified.
The theoretical steps applied in the frame of the onomasiological analysis are the following ones:

- comparison of the semantemes previously obtained and identification of the reference meanings (corresponding to a specific semanteme, cf. infra), which will be used in the making of semantic maps,
- reconstitution of the inner structure of the sematic domain thanks to the oppositions revealed by the semic analysis,
- elaboration of a reference semantic map model which takes into account the inner structure of the domain, the sememes identified for each polysemous lexeme and their respective semantic implications, the contact points with some contiguous semantic domains and the diglossia phenomenon,
- elaboration of the monolexeme semantic maps (they illustrate the evolution of the semantic field of one single lexeme in diachrony),
- elaboration of the global semantic maps, illustrating the respective distribution of the semantic fields of each lexeme within the unbounded time domain in diachrony and the semantic edges that can be drawn between the reference meanings (global semantic maps, type 1 and 2, cf. infra).
- Comparison of the results obtained in order to highlight an evolutionary schema and to identify the semantic changes at work through the language history (semantic expansion, semantic restriction, semantic deterioration, etc.)

The first part of the book starts with a list of definitions of specific terms (I.1) and explains a series of theoretical notions. The focus is put on the links between time, space and motion in world languages and in Egyptian (I.2.). The next section deals with the complexity of time conceptions in Ancient Egypt, and with the impact of this plural vision on the lexicon (1.3).
The two last sections of the first part are dedicated respectively to the presentation of the corpus and to the methodology.
The second part of the book aims at establishing a proposition of canvas for the semasiology of nouns. In this part, the semantic fields of eight lexemes semantically close and belonging to the unbounded time domain are defined, for every stage of their evolution in diachrony. The body of the study is thus made of the semasiological analysis of the following lexemes (here with their standard translation): A.t (moment), wnw.t (hour), nw (moment), tr (time), hAw (epoch), rk (epoch), aHaw (lifetime) and Hnty (period, course).
Each lexeme undergoes a complete analysis, including its detailed distribution in diachrony and by genre. Furthermore, to each attestation of each lexeme a distributional analysis is applied. Finally, the lexemes also undergo a semantic analysis, which allows to identify their different sememes.
All the case studies chapters are organized according to the same structure:

1. State of the art: situation in the dictionaries and databases
2. Description and analysis of the data
2.1. Distribution in diachrony and by genre
2.2. Graphematic analysis (and elements of phonology)
2.3. Syntagmatic analysis: results of the distributional analysis
2.3.1. Functions of the lexeme within the clause
2.3.2. Possession and determination of the lexeme
2.3.3. Qualification (adjectives)
2.3.4. Quantification (quantifiers, numbers, adverbs of frequency)
2.3.5. The lexeme in a genitival construction
2.3.5.1. As the first term of the construction
2.3.5.2. As the second term of the construction
2.3.6. Temporal cotext
2.3.7. Collocations and idiomatic expressions
3. Interpretation of the data: semantic analysis
3.1. Semantic evolution of the lexeme in diachrony
3.2. Significations of the lexeme in context
3.3. Componential analysis
The third part of the book is dedicated to the onomasiology of the unbounded time domain. Its goals are to highlight the links between the lexemes belonging to the domain and their evolution in diachrony, as well as some connections between the unbounded time domain and the contiguous domains of SPACE and SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS.
This part of the study reveals that the existence of several lexemes apparently interchangeable in some of their uses can be explained by differences in their distribution. Indeed, one can observe that such distribution varies according to the diachrony, the state of language (diglossia phenomenon) and the textual genre. A semantic nuance can also be introduced by means of specific semes, resulting in a pair of parasynonyms, among which one is marked and the other unmarked (e.g. the lexeme hAw means ‘epoch’ in general, both present and past, while rk is used only for the past).
The part III opens on a table listing reference meanings and their corresponding semantemes (III.1.). Indeed, the semasiological part of the study has allowed to identify the sememes of each polysemous lexeme and to decompose them into a series of semes (semanteme).
Each sememe identified corresponding to a specific semanteme has been associated to a reference meaning (RM). In total, 15 RM have been identified for the unbounded time domain. Each RM in the target language corresponds to a specific semanteme that can be actualized by one (or several) sememes from one (or several) lexemes in the source language.
The RM does not necessarily match the best contextualized translation of the lexeme. Rather, it constitutes a point of reference and enable to describe the meaning in a more objective way, because it is based on the semantic characteristics identified for a specific semanteme in Egyptian, without going through the filter of translation, and therefore without freezing the translation in context. The context-sensitive translation is made afterwards and must be dissociated from the RM since it takes into consideration the linguistic sensitivity and therefore the subjectivity of the speaker of the target language.
One must also stress the fact that a semanteme can be actualized by sememes from different lexemes. In this case, it means that semantic fields may partially overlap (e.g. A.t and wnw.t both actualize in one of their possible meanings the semanteme corresponding to the reference meaning MOMENT. The corresponding sememes are A.t1 and wnw.t2).
This implies that a clear correlation table must be established and provided in any study using this method. Ideally, a list of reference meanings and the corresponding semantic features should also be established and kept up-to-date in the target language(s). Here is the table emerged from the present study:

Semanteme 1 : /portion of time/-/bounded/-/intra-daily scale/-/a twenty-fourth of a day/  HOUR
Semanteme 2 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ intra-daily scale /-/brevity/  MOMENT
Semanteme 3 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ intra-daily scale /-/brevity/ /related to a person/-/inclusive/-/climax/  MOMENT OF CLIMAX
Semanteme 4 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ intra-daily scale /-/brevity/ /related to a person/-/inclusive/-/climax/ /related to a power relationship/  MOMENT OF POWER
Semanteme 5 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ intra-daily scale /-/related to a part of the day/  MOMENT OF THE DAY
Semanteme 6 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/implying a certain duration/-/linearity/  PERIOD
Semanteme 7 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/implying a certain duration/-/linearity/-/related to a part of the year/  SEASON
Semanteme 8 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/implying a certain duration/-/linearity/-/related to a specific activity/ TIME OF ACTIVITY
Semanteme 9 : / portion of time /-/unbounded/-/supra-daily scale/-/ implying a certain duration /-/linearity/-/related to a person/-/attributed/-/related to life/  LIFETIME
Semanteme 10 : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/supra-daily scale/-/ implying a certain duration /-/related to a person /-/inclusive/  EPOCH
Semanteme 11 : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/supra-daily scale/-/ implying a certain duration /-/related to a person /-/inclusive/ -/before/-/related to a high status person/ PAST EPOCH
Semanteme 12 : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/supra-daily scale/-/ implying a certain duration /-/to come/  PERIOD TO COME
Semanteme 13 : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ brevity/-/first phase/  START
Semanteme 14 : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ brevity/-/last phase/  END
Semanteme 14b : /portion of time /-/unbounded/-/ brevity/-/last phase/-/related to a person/-/attributed/  END (OF LIFE)
The structural oppositions inherent to the domain and dividing it in several subcategories are described in the following section of the book (III.2.).
The first opposition is the one between personal time (related to a person, in the broad sense: human, king or god) and non personal time (not related to a person). The personal time is intrinsically unbounded. Its limits are defined in context.
The personal time can be divided into two subcategories: the inclusive personal time and the attributed personal time. The inclusive personal time designates a time related to an individual and defined by him (the person is the centre of this time; e.g. ‘the epoch of someone’). It is usually expressed by expressions of the type m + temporal lexeme + suffix. It is itself divided into two subcategories, depending on the (intra)day or supra-day scale.
The (intra)day inclusive personal time corresponds to the moment of climax, that is the moment when the maximal potential of an individual is actualized. The lexemes A.t, wnw.t, nw , tr, hAw and rk belong to this category for at least one of their meanings. Beside that, the reference meaning MOMENT OF POWER, attested at least for A.t and tr lies at the intersection between inclusive and qualitative time, since the corresponding semanteme includes the seme /related to a power relationship/.
The supra-day inclusive personal time corresponds to the space and time of life, activity, evolution and physical as well as social realization of an individual. It is defined by the individual and does not exist without him. It is to this concept that corresponds the reference meaning EPOCH in the present work. This category includes the lexemes hAw, rk and tr.
The attributed personal time is the linear time provided to an individual to realize himself, as well as the limit of this time. This concept corresponds to the reference meaning LIFETIME, and is actualized by the lexemes aHaw and hAw (for the period) and by Hnty (for the limit of the period).
Within the non personal time, one should make a first distinction between bounded time and unbounded time. The bounded time corresponds to time entities whose length is intrinsically defined (hour, day, month, year). They are distributed on the infra-day – supra-day scale. The bounded time is not the topic of this study. However, its presence in the description is justified by the fact that one lexeme, wnw.t, colexifies the reference meaning hour besides its other significations within the unbounded time domain.
The personal unbounded time is divided into general time and qualitative time. The qualitative time is a time to which a specific quality is attributed in context. It can be a part of the day, a part of the year, a period related to an activity or a selection within a period (cf. A.t, wnw.t, tr).
The general time does not express any specific quality. It corresponds to the basic unbounded time entities (moment, period, time). They constitute the basis to the composition of other reference meanings (qualitative time, attributed personal time). Both general and qualitative unbounded times are distributed on an intraday – supraday continuum.
The section III.3. deals with the organization of meaning. As already mentioned before, a reference meaning has been attributed to a specific semanteme. These reference meanings are used in the tables of this section and in the semantic maps that follow.
The tables in this subsection (III.3.1.) summarize the attested reference meanings for each lexeme in diachrony. The data are displayed in four tables, corresponding to three periods, and four states of language: Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period, New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (late Egyptian, and égyptien de tradition).
The next subsection (III.3.2.) is an introduction to the semantic maps method. This method is here used as a visualization tool for the onomasiology data and adapted accordingly. The model developed in the frame of this study is presented and explained in the section III.3.3. It is conceived as a proposition to adapt the semantic maps method to intralinguistic lexical studies. Finally, in the last section, the reader will find three series of semantic maps built on this model.
In the first series, a diachronic semantic map is provided for each lexeme. This map illustrates the evolution of its semantic field through the different stages of the evolution of the Egyptian language (= monolexeme diachronic semantic maps). Each sector on the map illustrates the extension of this field for every evolutionary stage of the language: Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period; Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period; New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period.
Two sectors are represented for the last period (NK and TIP), illustrating a phenomenon of diglossia: one shows the extension of the semantic field in Late Egyptian and the other in égyptien de tradition.
A second series of four maps illustrates the respective positions of the semantics fields of each lexeme within the unbounded time domain for each evolutionary stage (= global semantic maps, type 1).
Finally, a third series of maps (global semantic maps, type 2) shows the semantic edges that can be established between the different RM, as well as their frequency according to the number of lexemes that actualize this colexification. The frequency of attestations of the different RM for each period is also provided by means of different shades of grey filling the frames.
The semantic maps used in this study differ in several points from the ones presented in the introductory section. Indeed, they do not compare different languages but aim at showing the evolution of the inner structure of a semantic domain at different evolutionary stages of a same language. The principle of comparison is however maintained: it applies to several evolutionary stages of a same language in diachrony and to several parasynonymous lexemes.
A reference meaning can be on the map only if it stands as a discriminatory feature between at least two lexemes (so that two fields cannot completely overlap). The RM are organised around three ‘pivot notions’ (François 2008): MOMENT, PERIOD and EPOCH.
This means that each lexeme has to actualize at least one of these notions for at least one stage of its diachronic evolution. These notions also correspond to three subdivisions of the ‘unbounded time’ domain.
Each semantic map presented in the book comes together with a description highlighting the phenomena of semantic evolution at work.