Ariel Shisha-Halevy

This work aims at a corpus-based description of certain central subsystems of Coptic grammar by using a structuralist method of analysis.

Structural Studies in the Syntax of Shenoutean Sahidic

Coptic Grammatical Categories

Summing-up four decades of research into Egyptian and Coptic grammar, and more than twenty years of study of Bohairic syntax, this work is a series of structural accounts of important sub-systems of Bohairic, in four chapters: Narrative and Dialogue Grammar, including tensing, texture and juncture; Nexus and Focalization Grammar, including the Nominal Sentence, Existential Statements, focussing and topicalization patterns; the Noun Syntagm, determination systems, generics, deixis, the Proper Name, possesion, the notae relationis and inalienable association; Juncture Features: Linkage and Delimitation, reference juncture, graphemato-morphematic juncture, "Ordination" juncture. The description is corpus-specific (the unedited Paris copte 1 Pentateuch, in constant comparison with the equally unedited Vat. copto 1), but always contrastive with the Nitrian and New Testament varieties of Bohairic. The work aims at reinstating the Bohairic dialect as central in the synchronic and diachronic appreciation of Coptic grammar (and, within Bohairic, "rehabilitating" the all-important Nitrian variety); also, at proving the syntactical independence of the Bohairic text vis a vis the Greek original - indeed, at making the case, by contrastive analysis, for a greater sophistication of the Bohairic system.

Structural Studies in the Bohairic Dialect

Topics in Coptic Syntax

Rosanna Sornicola

Erich Poppe

The issue of permanence and change of word-order patterns has long been debated in both historical linguistics and structural theories. The interest in this theme has been revamped by contemporary research in typology with its emphasis on correlation or 'harmonies' of structures of word-order as explicative principles of both synchronic and diachronic processes. The aim of this book is to stimulate a critical reconsideration of perspectives and methods in the study of continuities and discontinuities of word-order patterns. Bringing together contributions by specialists of various theoretical backgrounds and with expertise in different language families or groups (Caucasian, Hamito-Semitic, and among Indo-European Hittite, Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Romance), the book addresses issues like the notions of stability, variation and change of word-order and their interrelations, the interplay of syntactic and pragmatic factors, and the role of internal and external factors in synchronic and diachronic dynamics of word-order. The book contains a selection of papers presented at a workshop held at the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Dusseldorf, August 1997) and additonal invited contributions.

Ariel Shisha-Halevy

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