The Man-impersonal Verb Forms of the Suffix Pronoun Conjugation in Earlier Egyptian

Abstract

In this paper, ti/tw is explained as a simplified noun originating in a masculine noun meaning “a body, a person (or similar)” in Proto-Egyptian, which was used as an indefinite subject just as “ome”/“omne” in Medieval Spanish and “man” in German when it follows an active verb form of the suffix pronoun conjugation. The historical development of the Earlier Egyptian man-impersonal verb paradigm will be studied focusing on the changes that each man-impersonal verb form with ti/tw underwent from Old Egyptian to Middle Egyptian, to conclude that the Earlier Egyptian man-impersonal verb paradigm (except in exceptional cases) permeated later forms of the language, just as it would do in other languages, such as Spanish.