Classifying the Duat

2018 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-218
Author(s):  
Silvia Zago
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Pyramid Texts ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Elusive Concept

Summary The notion of Duat plays a major role in ancient Egyptian funerary beliefs. Yet, a single definition of this notion is impossible to achieve, as it underwent a process of evolution over thousands of years without ever designating just one unambiguous place at a time. In this context, an approach based on cognitive linguistics and on the significance of the determinatives accompanying the word Duat can be exploited to shed more light on this elusive concept. The focus will be here on the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts as well as the intermediary phase of transmission of the funerary literature during the period between the end of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.

Early Evidence for the Egyptian God Kheprer

2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Marie Peterková Hlouchová
Keyword(s):  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Early Evidence ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
Pyramid Texts

Analysing early pieces of evidence for a phenomenon has always been a problematic task and it can be more difficult when dealing with a religious topic. Anachronistic approaches have often been projected in this kind of research, which brings inaccurate interpretations and findings. This paper concentrates on early testimonies for the ancient Egyptian god Kheprer, the deity of the morning sun and autogenesis. It discusses some previously suggested Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom sources (such as finds of beetles in vessels, the so-called Libyan Palette, Giza writing board, figures of beetles, personal names and titles, Pyramid Texts) that can refer to the existence and belief in this deity. This study focuses mainly on the problematic issues in the interpretations of those finds, demonstrating thus that the only secure evidence for Kheprer comes from the Pyramid Texts.

scholarly journals Picturing the Pharaoh Through Language – Remarks on the Linguistic Image of the Egyptian King in the Old Kingdom Religious Texts

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 135-147
Author(s):  
Joanna Popielska-Grzybowska
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Pyramid Texts ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Context ◽  
Future Research Project

The author of the paper aims at scrutinising the linguistic image of the Egyptian pharaoh in the so-called Pyramid Texts. Was the Egyptian ruler perceived as a human representative of the god on Earth or rather was he a or the god himself? Special emphasis will be put on names and epithets of the King when described or referred to in religious texts of the Old Kingdom. This study is planned as a part of a future research project on picturing the pharaoh through language in religious and royal texts from the beginning of the Old Kingdom till the end of the New Kingdom, and realised in cooperation with Dr. Andrzej Ćwiek and Jadwiga Iwaszczuk.Furthermore, the paper is also a presentation of use of ethnolinguistic methods in Egyptology. Using scholarly methods of the ‘linguistic worldview’ research project in which the present author participates, it is intended to study selected ancient Egyptian concepts. Although language analysis as well as widely understood and studied ‘life context’ of ancient religious notions let us only a textual and linguistic reconstruction of the world presented, concurrently, helps us understand better the Egyptian religious way of description and thinking.

Changing Concept of the Royal Grain Management in Egypt (2600-1650 BC)

2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-61
Author(s):  
Martina Bardoňová
Keyword(s):  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

The present study concerns a longue durée evolution of the ancient Egyptian Snw.ty from the time of its foundation during the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom (ca 2600–1650 BC). During this time, Snw.ty was the apex of the royal grain management as an important royal tool and intermediary between the producers and receivers of the grain. The objective of this study is to determine how Snw.ty was used during this time and how its operations transformed with respect to changing royal administration and policies. The analysis is based on observation of term’s use transformations which might be indicative of its changing sense, as found in written documents referring to both Snw.ty and related Snw.wt installations.

The Ancient Egyptian Conception of God: From the Predynastic Through the Old Kingdom (ca. 3800–2135 B.C.E.)

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leival Richards
Keyword(s):  
Individual Behaviour ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Qualitative Work

It is not clear what an Egyptian god was, what was believed about them, or how people responded to them. This qualitative work induces the nature of gods from the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. culture with the intention of stating what Egyptians believed. Framed in a philosophical design, it explores three features. First, using language, archaeology, and iconography the essentials of the god identity are outlined for original qualification. Second, god existence is argued using classical proofs. Third, god character is examined to reveal the specific psychological archetype that dictated their behaviour in myth. Then, delineated by the essential qualities of all three features, the nature of the gods is consolidated and filtered through an Old Kingdom value structure to reveal their conception—habitual ideal individual behaviour. The ancient Egyptians had a monistic idea for god that was internalised by every individual thus creating a system of internal equality despite the external inequality.

scholarly journals What is Salience?

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 713-722
Author(s):  
Vincent Boswijk ◽  
Matt Coler
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Working Definition ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractA commonly used concept in linguistics is salience. Oftentimes it is used without definition, and the meaning of the concept is repeatedly assumed to be self-explanatory. The definitions that are provided may vary greatly from one operationalization of salience to the next. In order to find out whether it is possible to postulate an overarching working definition of linguistic salience that subsumes usage across linguistic subdomains, we review these different operationalizations of linguistic salience. This article focuses on salience in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, second-language acquisition (SLA), and semantics. In this article, we give an overview of how these fields operationalize salience. Finally, we discuss correlations and contradictions between the different operationalizations.

THE CONCEPT AS THE OBJECT OF STUDY OF LINGUISTICS

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-242
Author(s):  
K. Galiyeva ◽  
◽  
S. Isakova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon ◽  
Scientific Fields

The article is devoted to the definition of concept in modern linguistics. Various points of view and definitions of the basic concepts are considered: "concept", "conceptual sphere", "content". The aim of the article is to describe and explain such a complex unit as a concept from the point of view of linguistics. The object of research is studied in its various manifestations, the combination of verbal and nonverbal means of information expression in the conceptual sphere is revealed. the relevance of this topic is due to the need for a detailed consideration of the concept of concept based on the works of prominent scientists and linguists. Researchers treat the concept as a cognitive, psycholinguistic, linguocultural, cultural and linguistic phenomenon. The concept is an umbrella term because it "covers" the subject areas of several scientific fields: primarily cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics.

Modal Difficulty in Medieval Literature Analysis: the Frame-Notation Correlation in Dante’s Quotations of Fibonacci

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-121
Author(s):  
Moreno Bonda
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literature Analysis ◽  
Dense Networks ◽  
Mathematical Formulas ◽  
Cognitive Frame ◽  
Definition Of

The investigation of medieval literature poses a number of challenges, even to native speaker researchers. Such difficulties are related to (a) linguistic – syntactical and lexical – obstacles, (b) to the ability to recognise dense networks of interdisciplinary references and, (c) mainly to the cognitive challenges posed by “unfamiliar modes of expression”. The aim of this research is to discuss a methodological approach to deal with these unusual manners of composition, technically known as modal difficulty, in medieval literature. The theoretic setting is represented by Davide Castiglione’s monographic study Difficulty in Poetry (2018) and the specific definition of modal difficulty elaborated by James E. Vincent in the premise of his treatise on American poetry (2003). A study case illustrative of challenges in medieval literature analysis has been chosen to illustrate the speculative reasoning: the references to the celebrated mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (1170–1242) – known for having introduced the Arabic numbers to the Europeans – in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Preliminarily, the author discusses unfamiliar mathematical notations implemented from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Subsequently, adopting cognitive linguistics principles and hermeneutic as methodological tools, several veiled citations of the mathematician’s cogitations – such as the chess comparison in Paradise XXVIII, 91–93 and the quadratic expression in Paradise XXVII, 115–117 – are deciphered and illustrated. The analysis of Dante’s cognitive frame indicates that the recourse to Fibonacci’s formulas is functional to depict the incommensurable multitude of the divine in words. In the conclusions, the case studied is adopted as a model to illustrate how the reflection on unusual forms of expression could be employed to investigate ancient literary texts. A preliminary analysis of the frame-notation relation could help, as an example, to recognise mathematical formulas that were expressed in a verbal and non-symbolic notation.

Through the prototypes of through: A corpus-based cognitive analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-70
Author(s):  
Gaëtanelle Gilquin ◽  
Andrew McMichael
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Cognitive Analysis ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Abstract This paper empirically tests a number of criteria proposed in the literature to identify the prototype of a linguistic category in order to see how they compare with each other - and what this can tell us about the concept of prototypicality. The item under investigation is through, and the starting point is an intuition-based definition of prototypical through. The different criteria are frequency of use, ease of elicitation, historical origin, patterns in L1 acquisition and patterns in L2 use. All instances of through retrieved for testing each of these criteria are classified according to a taxonomy couched in Construction Grammar terms. The findings confirm the special status of the intuition-based prototype of through (the [X moves through Y] construction) according to some of the criteria, but also reveal divergent results, in particular a central use of the instrumental prepositional phrase with through. Conclusions are drawn about the theoretical concept of prototypicality and its possible multi-faceted nature, and more generally about the place of empirical evidence in Cognitive Linguistics.

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