Some thoughts on the sentence particle iw A digest of postings to AEL by Stephen Fryer, January 1998
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For Middle Egyptian, the basic rules of iw are: 1) iw without suffix pronoun only occurs at the beginning of an initial main clause and indicates that this is a statement of fact. (The particle mk is frequently used in similar fashion with a more emphatic effect.) 2) iw with a suffix pronoun occurs as in (1) but also to introduce a circumstantial clause - so you have to look more closely at these to see which usage this is. In the case of a subordinate clause, the iw is there simply to give something to attach the suffix to. So it has nothing in itself to do with past present or future; it does have to do with mood - marking the "indicative" mood (= simple statement of fact). Please realize that there were a number of other possible sentence structures available to the Egyptians, to express various shades of meaning. Already in the Gardiner chapters people have looked at on the list, there is another sentence type: Adjectival. This starts with an adjective, not a particle ( iw or mk ), as in nfr sy (She is good) or nfr sDm n it=k (It is good to listen to your father.) Statements such as iw ra m pt are what are called adverbial sentences - they are the only kind where iw is used to start a clause. Adjectival sentences(nfr sy) and nominal sentences (imny rn=i) are not introduced by iw. The use of iw with verbs (iw sDm=f or iw sDm.n=f or iw ii=kwi) occurs only when it is a simple statement of fact and only in first-person narrative. Also, it may be replaced by other introductory particles such as mk or ix. That means that it is most likely to occur in stories or biographies rather than monumental inscriptions, and its use is likely to be somewhat limited even in tomb inscriptions. These forms would probably have been used much more widely in daily speech, but we don't have that written down usually (if you want totake a tape recorder back to the reign of Amenemhet I to check this out, I'd be delighted to know whether this speculation is true or not!). In the Old Kingdom, the verb tenses available were all "relative" tenses - relative to whatever was going on in the narration - and the forms with iw were developed as "absolute" tenses - relative to the person talking (like with English or Latin verbs). So their limitation to use in direct speech or quotation is not surprising. Which reminds me of another usage that reduces the frequency of iw - only the first of a series of sentences might be introduced by iw with a number of following sentences (In English they would probably be treated as separate sentences, but this isn't English) depending on that one little iw so they don't need their own. Notice that in the Hatshepsut obelisk the instances are all first person statements relating the time of action to the speaker (HatShepsut). (The verb rx is rather a peculiar one, which actually means "to learn," so to express the idea "know" you have to use the stative form, which expresses the result of learning - so we have iw=i rx=kwi instead of iw rx.n=f) Now the next thing you're going to ask probably is "Well why learn about iw ifit isn't used that much?" It is mainly because the simplest sentences to learn are those that make basic statements of fact, or description, which is exactly these sentences. And since we can only learn so much at once (it would be wonderful to learn it all in one lump!) this is where we usually start. It is used quite a number of times in both the stories of the Westcar papyrus and the Story of the Shipwrecked sailor, and in both of those I can assure you it conforms to the rules I have mentioned. On the whole, I would recommend to anyone who is SERIOUSLY interested in the whole question of iw especially in Middle Egyptian, that they should read Dr. James Allen's essay "Tense in Classical Egyptian" which is in the book 'Essays on Egyptian Grammar', 1986, ISBN 0-912532-900, which is available from Eisenbraun's (http://www.eisenbrauns.com/ ) for US$12. One of the functions of iw, in J P Allen's analysis, and which is of practical importance, is in introducing "absolute tenses" into the discussion of verbs. Egyptian verbs did not go in for the sort of absolute tenses that us speakers of west European languages are so used to. Rather, the tenses are purely relative to the time within the sentence in which they occur. There is no reference to the time of the speaker. Using iw with these verb forms makes the tense of the verb relative to that of the speaker. So verb forms with iw can be treated like our European tenses; those without are much less definite in terms of absolute time. This needs to be taken into account when translating verbal sentences. In non-verbal sentences (which is what we have been covering so far), things are less clear, since there is no verb, and therefore no indication of tense. Treat then as being in the speaker's present - since there are other ways of indicating future, etc. in such sentences and clauses. For those who want a better understanding of how the whole of Egyptian grammar fits together, I would recommend a good MODERN textbook. The best I know of in English is 'Middle Egyptian Grammar' by Dr. James Hoch. It is also available from Eisenbraun's for US$50, or you can get it direct from the author (James_Hoch@mail.campuslife.utoronto.ca ). Remember, Gardiner represents the state of the art 70 years ago, Budge's grammar of 120 years ago. Much research has gone into these questions since then!

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