A propos de quelques tournures interrogatives et constructions associées dans les légendes discursives (‘Reden und Rufe’) des tombes privées

Abstract

"(Pseudo)-Interrogative Sentences and Associated Phrases in Speech Captions in Private Tombs": In this paper, I discuss the (pseudo)-interrogative phrases, both those that are introduced by an interrogative word as well as those that are not. My aim is to provide a synchronic and diachronic study of such sentences and to illustrate a few of their uses in the Reden und Rufe corpus. After a short introduction (section 1), the predicate questions jn and jn-jw are considered in section 2 and adjunct questions built with the interrogative pronouns jšs.t, zy, m and the interrogative adverb ṯn(y) in section 3. Section 3 will further discuss a couple of affirmative and exclamative sentences, which have to be linked with the rhetorical question jšs.t pw A. The fourth and last section before conclusions is devoted to three cases studies relevant for this investigation, i.e. the proclitic particle js, which allows the speaker to distance himself from his words through an ironic statement (4.1), interrogative phrases without interrogative words (4.2), and the particle ḫy hitherto known from letters only (4.3). As a result 50 examples from Old Kingdom mastabas to Late Period tombs have been considered. Even if real (or ordinary) questions (OQs) arose in a few cases, there is a clear majority of rhetorical questions (RQs), which are uninformative and assertive. Both OQs and RQs can be expressed by means of the same syntactic structure, be it predicate questions, adjuncts questions, or interrogative phrases without interrogative words. Some are however preferred for RQs, and vice versa. The RQs as adjunct questions, which are predominant in this text corpus, invoke a predetermined answer from the addressee, being either jnk pw or jnk + nominalized participle. As such they reveal a first rhetorical strategy in which the answer is the counterpart of the question with exactly the same syntactic structure jšs.t pw A – jnk pw, zy pw A – jnk pw, and (j)n-m + participle – jnk + participle). The jšs.t pw A and (j)n-m + participle patterns expose a further rhetorical strategy in which the speaker and/or the addressee is/are objectified.