New Kingdom Classifier Usage and the Global Reorganisation of Egyptian Categorisation Practice
(2014) Peirce, Hieroglyphs and Multimodality — Location: Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (7.May.2014)
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- Abstract
- Classifiers and the system of classifiers in Ancient Egyptian is a subject that has recently been explored by a number of excellent publications (cf. bibliography). Therefore it could seem difficult to contribute further to this discourse. Nevertheless, the approach I propose is an innovative one, since it aims at determining the actual point of time which divided a long-term process into two phases. This will be achieved by highlighting a particularly interesting phenomenon of evolution inside the classification system. Indeed, the Egyptian New Kingdom (c. 1550–1064 BC) and, more specifically, the XXth dynasty (c. 1187–1064 BC) seems to constitute a turning point in the development of classifier usage and classification strategies. At this time, we are faced with what looks to be a systematic reorganisation of the system, consisting of two phenomena: The main one is that, for a given lexeme, the use of a given classifier (or combinations of classifiers) tends to become more systematised. In addition, one can also observe a tendency towards a more systematic specification of meaning, appearing in the case of polysemous lexemes in order to disambiguate the different possible senses of the lexeme. In cases where, in Earlier Egyptian, a unique classifier was used with a particular lexeme, in Late Egyptian of the XXth dynasty several are used, one for each sense of the lexeme. The purpose of my talk is to illustrate these phenomena of linguistic change by means of some case studies and trying to demonstrate their dynamics by taking into account several factors, such as the genre the texts belong to or the degree of abstraction expressed by the lexemes.
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Chantrain, G. (2014). New Kingdom Classifier Usage and the Global Reorganisation of Egyptian Categorisation Practice. Peirce, Hieroglyphs and Multimodality, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/177499