A Note on Pronominal Resumption in Earlier Egyptian Relative Clauses*

Abstract

This article presents a reassessment of the evidence of pronominal resumption in Old and Middle Egyptian relative clauses in which a transitive relative form appears with a similarly transitive event complement. It is shown that, contrary to what has been argued before, there is a simple rule conditioning the use of resumptive pronouns to express the object of the complement, provided the latter is infinitival. However, in the case of finite complements, the resumption appears not to be rule governed and it is suggested that such instances may represent the only true exception to the otherwise very strict rules of resumption in Earlier Egyptian relative clauses.