Ancient Egyptian Classifiers in a Diachronic Perspective

<p>German-Israeli cooperative project conducted by Orly Goldwasser (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Frank Kammerzell (HU).</p>
<p>The major subject matters of the project are the systematic principles governing the usage of graphemic classifiers in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, their variation in accordance with different text sorts and/or distinct media of transmission, their transformation in time, and the diachronic development of categorization practice in general. Graphemic classifiers or determinatives (as they have been traditionally called in Egyptology) represent a type of hieroglyphs that often, though not obligatorily, were attached to a content word and without being realized in spoken language indicated the category to which the classified element belonged. In contrast to modern Western scripts, which make use of graphemic classifiers only infrequently, this sign class was quite regularly used in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing and by this constitutes an explicit system of categorization.</p>
<p>The two groups work on the basis of a common theoretical model, which was developed and tested during the last fifteen years in close cooperation of the applicants and their pupils and has been considerably refined in 2007. The investigations to be conducted will be corpus-based and for the first time will take into consideration also those lexemes from among nouns and verbs which regularly occur with a zero-classifier.</p>
<p>The following specific investigations are planned:<br /> (I) A comparison of graphemic classification systems and morphemic classification systems (Orly Goldwasser with Colette Grinewald): Study on the typological similarities and dissimilarities between classifiers realized in written language only and such corresponding with elements of spoken language that aims at finding common principles underlying the systems of distinctive media.<br /> (II) The diachrony of verb classification (Frank Kammerzell): Survey of the historical development of verbal classifiers in written Egyptian as well as in other linguistic systems which permit to examine the diachronic dimension.(III) The principles of classification in Old Egyptian (Eliese-Sophia Lincke): Research project based on the theoretical framework developed in her M.A.-thesis (Lincke 2011) (IV) a) A functional typology of Egyptian classifiers, b) The PLURAL classifier, c) Classifier Systems in three Middle Egyptian cursive texts: an empirical and functional approach (Daniel Werning; Werning 2011.I, §§3-8; Werning, Sundermeyer & Klepsch, in preparation.<br /> (V) Gender of the DIVINE a diachronic perspective on the development of female DIVINE classifiers in religious and secular texts (Rachel Shalomi-Hen).<br /> (VI) Cultural aspects of classification (Niv Allon and N.N.).</p>
<p>Studies of specific classifiers and their relevance for the study of Ancient Egyptian culture. Comparison with other sources of information, e.g. linguistic metaphors, textual, pictorial and archaeological evidence.</p>