conceptualizations of embodied space

CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF EMBODIED SPACE

The semantics of body parts in Sahidic compound prepositions*

RUNE NYORD

��. This paper presents an analysis of the semantic structure of body part terms occurring in compound prepositions in Sahidic Coptic. Based on the corpus of the New Testament translation and with a theoretical outset inspired by cognitive linguistics, it is argued that each of the body part terms can be viewed as a conceptual category based on an embodied prototype with a greater or smaller number of extensions. Thus, rather than providing a list of possible English translations as is often done, the paper shows that it is possible to understand the compound prepositions based on a single body part as a closely related set of categories ultimately rooted in human embodied experience.

1. GRAMMATICALIZATION OF BODY PARTS

One of the essential insights of recent decades of linguistic research is that human language is fundamentally embodied. This entails that categories in language and thought do not consist of purely abstract manipulation of symbols, but are fundamentally shaped by the human body and embodied experience. One interesting consequence of this is that human language very often uses expressions denoting or implicating the human body and its parts to structure domains of more abstract and less experientially accessible domains. Particularly with domains which are experientially salient such as that of space, the human body still provides much of the domain structure, apart from structuring the experience of space at a pre0conceptual level.

Among the most celebrated and often0cited linguistic examples of this bodily structuring of space is the use of body parts to express spatial relations in certain Mexican languages. Made famous in linguistics by

* I am grateful to Camilla Di Biase0Dyson and Jens Jørgensen for stimulating

discussions and comments on earlier versions of this paper.

242 Rune Nyord

Claudia Brugman1 and introduced into the cognitive linguistic paradigm – where it has become a classical example of embodied language – by George Lakoff,2 spatial expressions in Chalcatongo Mixtec are frequently constructed by metaphorically ascribing human or animal body parts to various objects in the world. Thus, to express that someone is standing on the top of a mountain, Mixtec has literally ‘He is located mountain’s head’ (without a preposition):3

híyaà�δe šini�yúku be + located03sg.m. head0hill ‘He is on top of the hill.’

Always having an eye for the wider implications that the study of ancient Egypt may have outside the field of Egyptology itself, Paul Frandsen has been keen to note examples of such more widespread phenomena in ancient Egyptian language and thought, and the fundamental insight that the Egyptian language has some very interesting examples of the same order as the Mixtec locatives is no exception. Thus, Paul has frequently pointed out interesting and apparently exotic examples of bodily metaphors and other conceptual derivations from Egyptian texts both in conversation and in his lectures on Egyptian language and culture, and also occasionally in writing.4

A striking example of bodily concepts used to structure space and other more abstract relations is found in the Coptic system of compound prepositions. However, the study of their semantics has not hitherto managed to bridge the apparent gap between the concrete reference to parts of the human body and the use to refer abstractly to spatial and social relations.

I thus present the following study to Paul in the hope that it will appeal to his interest in the bodily language and thought of the ancient Egyptians.

1 Brugman, C., ‘The use of body0part terms as locatives in Chalcatongo Mixtec’, in:

Schlichter, A., Chafe, W.L. and Hinton, L. (eds.), Studies in Mesoamerican Linguistics (=Reports from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages 4), Berkeley 1983, pp. 2350290; Brugman, C. and Macauley, M., ‘Interacting Semantic Systems. Mixtec Expressions of Location’, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 12 (1986), pp. 3150327.

2 Lakoff, G., Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago and London 1987, pp. 3130317.

3 Brugman, ‘The use of body0part terms as locatives in Chalcatongo Mixtec’, in: Schlichter, Chafe and Hinton (eds.), Studies in Mesoamerican Linguistics, p. 256, ex. 46 = Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, p. 313.

4 E.g. Frandsen, P.J., ‘On Categorization and Metphorical Structuring. Some remarks on Egyptian art and language’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (1997), esp. p. 82f.

Conceptualizations of Embodied Space 243

1.1. Grammaticalization and conceptual structure

Ronald W. Langacker has analysed examples from Mixtec like the one quoted above as a series of semantic extensions through metaphor and metonymy.5 This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the theoretical background of Langacker’s analysis, and only a couple of key notions will be introduced here.6 The first of these is the idea that human thought processes are fundamentally dependent on metaphorical and metonymical connections. In this regard, metaphor can be defined as one conceptual domain being used to structure another, while metonymy is a PART0WHOLE relation within a single conceptual domain. Of particular interest to the study of the semantic extensions of spatial prepositions are the so0called orientational metaphors which are used to project a spatial structure to an abstract domain,7 e.g. the conceptual metaphor CONTROL IS UP, which is found in a wide variety of contexts where a controlling entity is metaphorically described as being over that which is controlled. Another relevant type of metaphors is the category of ontological metaphors which are used to confer an ontological status to an abstract domain,8 e.g. CAUSALITY IS SUPPORT, where a causal relationship is conceptualized as the consequence being lifted or held up by the cause.

The second key notion is that many human conceptual categories are structured radially as a series of extensions from a central prototype, as opposed to the traditional view of categories as defined according to necessary and sufficient features.9

Within this theoretical framework, Langacker analyses the semantic extensions enabling the Mixtec locative constructions on the basis of a central meaning denoting the literal body part, e.g. FOOT:

5 Langacker, R.W., ‘A Study in Unified Diversity: English and Mixtec Locatives’, in:

Enfield, N.J. (ed.), Ethnosyntax. Explorations in Grammar and Culture, Oxford 2002, p. 1380161.

6 For the cognitive linguistic view of category structure and conceptual metaphor/ metonymy, see (with further refs.) Nyord, R., Breathing Flesh. Conceptions of the Body in the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (=CNI Publications 37), pp. 5035; id., ‘The Radial Structure of some Middle Egyptian Prepositions’, ZÄS 137 (2010), pp. 27029; id., ‘Prototype Structures and Conceptual Metaphor. Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian’, in: Grossmann, E., Polis, S. and Winand, J. (eds.), Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian (=LingAeg Studia Monographica 9), Hamburg 2012, pp. 1410174.

7 Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., Metaphors We Live By, Chicago and London 1980, pp. 14021; Kövecses, Z., Metaphor. A Practical Introduction, Oxford 2002, p. 35f.

8 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, pp. 25032; Kövecses, Metaphor, p. 34f. 9 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, p. 83f et passim.

244 Rune Nyord

‘[In locative expressions, the word denoting a body part] assumes a meaning derived from the basic sense by regular patterns of metaphor and metonymy [...]. Via metaphor (FOOT → FOOT´) it comes to designate an entity which resembles the human foot in being the lower portion of an object with significant vertical extension. Via metonymy (FOOT´→ FOOT´´), it comes to designate instead the region in space contiguous to that part of the object’10

The three senses are illustrated in the figure reproduced here as Figure 1. It is important to note that the radial view of category structure means that the three different meanings are all part of the semantic network of the category FOOT, which is thus polysemous in the sense that the lexeme covers several different, but semantically related conventional meanings.

This leads to a third important notion in cognitive linguistics, namely that lexicon and grammar are not absolute oppositions, but are found at opposite ends of a continuum.11 In this view, grammaticalization is not a question of a morpheme jumping from one category to the other, but rather that various senses of the morpheme may be found in different places of the continuum – some of which may eventually become obsolete.

Finally, a set of terms used by Langacker to describe the entities correlated by prepositions will be employed in this paper. The landmark is the noun following the preposition, while the trajector is the entity which the preposition relates to the landmark.12

2. SAHIDIC COPTIC COMPOUND PREPOSITIONS

The analytical framework proposed by Langacker for Mixtec locatives can be applied to grammaticalized body parts in many other languages as well. It is well0known to philologists that the Egyptian language offers examples of this phenomenon from its earliest written stages, but only at the Coptic stage does it seem to evolve into a general system akin to the one found in Mixtec. The purpose of the present paper is to provide the first steps towards a better understanding of the semantics of

10 Langacker, ‘A Study in Unified Diversity’, in: Enfield (ed.), Ethnosyntax, p. 150f.

Note that the notion of metonymy here (followed elsewhere in the present paper) is based on Langacker’s own definition as the mechanism by which ‘an expression that ordinarily profiles one entity is used instead to profile another entity associated with it in some domain’, Langacker, R.W., Cognitive Grammar. A Basic Introduction, Oxford 2008, p. 80.

11 Langacker, Cognitive Grammar, p. 5 et passim. 12 Ibid., pp. 70073.


the Coptic system of compound prepositions derived from nouns denoting body parts.

To achieve this aim, the paper presents a corpus0based analysis of a selection of compound prepositions in the Sahidic New Testament. This choice of corpus is made on the basis that, apart from providing a workable and accessible example of Classical Sahidic, in the case of semantically elusive categories like prepositions, it will sometimes be of value to be able to check the Coptic constructions against a well0known Greek original.13

Compound prepositions in Coptic can be of several types, and for the present purposes the group of greatest interest is the one consisting of a simple preposition followed by a possessed noun, in most cases with an etymological origin in a body part term. In the case of some of the terms, the corresponding designations of body parts continue to be used outside of the compounds, but for several of the body parts, the literal uses have been taken over by different terms.14

The details of the morpho0syntactical properties of compound expressions in the Sahidic New Testament have already been

13 For some considerations about the linguistic relationship between Greek original

and Coptic translation, see the references given at Metzger, B.M., The Early Versions of the New Testament. Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations, Oxford 1977, p. 107, n. 1 and the overview by J. Martin Plumley at pp. 1410152 of the same volume.

14 The tendency is for terms denoting paired body parts to lose their literal reference, while other nouns for body parts generally retain it, as pointed out and cogently explained etymologically by Depuydt, L., ‘A New Coptic Grammar’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002), p. 813f and id., ‘Demotic Script and Grammar (III): ��“on them” in Mythus 18,7’, Enchoria 28 (2002/2003), pp. 7018.

Figure 1. Conceptual derivation from body part to locative expression. After Langacker, ‘A Study in Unified Diversity: English and Mixtec Locative

Expressions’, in: Enfield, E.J. (ed.), Ethnosyntax. Explorations in Grammar & Culture, Oxford 2002, p. 151, fig. 7.4.

246 Rune Nyord

magisterially studied by Bentley Layton15 and need not be repeated here. The semantics of Coptic prepositions, including compound ones, were discussed by Herbert P. Houghton over half a century ago,16 and while the discussion remains unusually sensitive to the semantic nuances of the Coptic words, it obviously was unable to include the theoretical perspectives of embodiment and radial category structure that can help give another perspective on the phenomenon, and only one or two main senses of each compound preposition were treated.

The group of prepositions to be examined here forms a subset of the compound expressions analysed by Layton. In order to study the core of the prepositional system while keeping the investigation on a suitable scale, the body parts have been selected which occur in compound prepositions with more than one simple preposition. This definition yields the following attested compound prepositions listed in Figure 2.17 Parentheses are used to show that the compound preposition in question is not attested in the New Testament (and thus will not be treated further here), but does occur elsewhere in Sahidic texts.

The reason that it is sensible to analyse the compound prepositions into their constituent parts is that the prototypical meaning of each compound preposition is largely predictable on the basis of the combination of simple preposition and body part, making it possible to approach the compound prepositions studied here as forming part of a spatial system. At the same time, the more peripheral and/or metaphorical uses differ somewhat and are less predictable, if still clearly motivated by the central meaning. A good example is distributions of meanings derived from the noun ��, ‘hand’, where the exceptional survival of the compound with the simple preposition �0 (old �) somewhat alters the distribution compared to the general pattern, because ��0 shifts the semantic area which one would have expected ��0 to occupy.

15 Layton, B., ‘Compound Prepositions in Sahidic Coptic’, in: Young, D.W. (ed.),

Studies Presented to Hans Jakob Polotsky, East Gloucester, Mass. 1981, pp. 2390260. 16 Houghton, H.P., ‘A Study of the Coptic Prefixed Prepositional Particles’, Aegyptus

38 (1958), pp. 2110222. 17 While it is beyond doubt that the Sahidic preposition ��0, ‘before’ is

etymologically derived from the ��, ‘face’, the first element cannot be straightforwardly identified with a simple preposition, which is probably the reason that it is treated as a simple preposition e.g. in Layton, B., A Coptic Grammar with Chrestomathy and Glossary2 (=Porta Linguarum Orientalium 20), Wiesbaden 2004, p. 163 (§163). The same is true for �� 0, ‘after’ (from , ‘back’), the exclusion of which means, according to the criteria set up here, that the only other compound with , namely � 0, ‘behind, after’ will not be treated in this paper.


The compound prepositions under discussion here often occur together with spatial adverbials like ��, ‘out’ and ��, ‘up/down’, when the scenario evoked fits the semantics of CONTAINMENT and VERTICALITY

18 respectively inherent in these two expressions. In some cases, there seems initially to be little discernible change in meaning depending on the presence or absence of these adverbials, whereas in other cases they appear to be almost obligatory.19 Interesting as these patterns are, elucidating them would necessitate a comprehensive study of the use of the adverbial expressions in question both co0occurring with prepositions and in other connections, and thus falls outside of the scope of the present paper. It should be noted, however, that such a study remains an important desideratum and would constitute a significant complement to the results of the present study.

2.1. ��0/��, ‘head of’ > ‘top surface of’20

2.1.1 Semantic structure

The most immediate extension of the concrete meaning of this term, and the one forming the basis for all of the grammaticalized usages, is the reference to the upwards0facing surface of the landmark. This extension is motivated in the first place by the location of the head of a human being in a prototypical upright posture, and secondarily by the fact that the uppermost portion of an entity often functions as a support for other objects – although this second element is somewhat marginal in the case of the heads of human beings.

This central, iconic meaning can be illustrated by the frequent references to the ‘top’ of a mountain as a horizontal surface, combining the notions of VERTICALITY with that of SUPPORT:

18 As suggested by Shisha0Halevy, A., Coptic Grammatical Categories. Structural

Studies in the Syntax of Shenoutean Sahidic (=AnOr 53), Rome 1986, p. 29f (§1.1.2.1, C, 2) it is possible that �� is neutral, rather than ambiguous, in relation to the UP0DOWN distinction, which would entail that the expression in Coptic marks VERTICALITY generally without in itself indicating the direction.

19 Cf. the inventory of such ‘expandable modifiers’ and their combinations with prepositions in Shisha0Halevy, Coptic Grammatical Categories, p. 28f.

20 Černý, J., Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge 1976, p. 310f; Crum, W.E., A Coptic Dictionary, Oxford 1939, p. 756a0759b; Vycichl, W., Dictionaire étymologique de la langue copte, Leuven 1983, p. 334; Westendorf, W., Koptisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg 196501977, p. 442f; Johnson, J., Chicago Demotic Dictionary, Ḏ (01:01), p. 10; Spiegelberg, W., Demotische Grammatik, Heidelberg 1925, pp. 1640166 (§§3700374).

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��0� �0� ��0� ��0�HEAD ��0� � ��0� (��)21

�

FACE ��0� � (��)� �

MOUTH ��0� � ��0� ��0�BREAST ��0� � ��0� �

HAND ��0� ��0� ��0� ��0�FOOT �� (��) � ��

Ex. 1� Revelation 14:1

��

‘I looked, and see, a lamb standing on Mount Zion’

It is important to note here that the notion of support does not reside exclusively in the preposition ��0 forming the first part of the compound in this example, but appears to be a part of the prototypical meaning of ��0/�� in itself, as can be seen in the following example with the preposition �0:

Ex. 2� Matthew 4:8 ��

‘Once more, the Devil took him up on a very high mountain’

From this basic spatial relation, a few further meanings are derived, still irrespective of the preposition added to the compound. Thus, the notion of VERTICALITY may be weakened, so that the surface is not necessarily oriented upwards, as long as it is otherwise (the most) accessible and salient:

Ex. 3� Mark 8:25 ��

‘Then he placed his hand upon his eyes. His eyes cleared up and he could see, and he saw all things well’

The direction of access to the surface in this case is not vertical, but the spatial properties of the landmark allow the notions of a surface and in some sense also SUPPORT to be retained. The meaning of the morpheme in such cases may be glossed as the ‘accessible surface’ rather than ‘top surface’. In certain cases, this may be broadened to denote the entire spatial surface of the landmark, e.g.:

21 Not found as compound preposition in the NT, but �� is used literally once in

John 20:12. Cf. Gunn, B., ‘Notes on Egyptian Lexicography’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 27 (1941), p. 144f for the history of this usage.

Figure 2. Combinations of prepositions and body parts in Sahidic compound prepositions


Ex. 4� 2 Corinthians 3:13 ��

‘... and not as Moses who put a veil over his face’

This tendency to neutralize the notion of VERTICALITY comprises the foundation for a further abstraction. In a number of cases, it becomes clear that the lexeme does not denote a concrete surface that can be touched, but rather a metonymical projection of such a surface into the immediate vicinity of the landmark:

Ex. 5� Acts 10:6 ��

‘… a certain Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea (or: on the seashore)’

In such cases, the surface is abstracted to become a projection all around the boundaries of the landmark, whether vertical or not (although naturally the house is still located higher than the sea), and the notion of SUPPORT is missing. This usage of the morpheme gains a particular importance with animate landmarks, particularly human beings, where it comes to denote a relationship where the trajector is located in the immediate (sometimes with the connotation of surprising or imposing) vicinity of the landmark. In such uses, there may be an overlap between the purely spatial sense of the preposition and the metaphorical use to indicate CONTROL, as discussed below (Ex. 8):

Ex. 6� Acts 12:7 ��

‘And look, an angel of the Lord stood beside Peter’

A further development projects the surface into the space immediately above it, so that the word can denote an area above but close to the landmark, thus focusing on the VERTICALITY element without the notion of SUPPORT:

Ex. 7� Luke 23:38 ��

‘And an inscription was above him: “This is the King of the Jews”’

All of the examples cited so far have concerned concrete spatiality. A further series of extensions of the meaning comes from the metaphorical application of the prototypical meaning combining VERTICALITY and SUPPORT. One extension which is shared by all the combinations with simple prepositions is derived from the orientational metaphor CONTROL

IS UP. Extended by this metaphorical projection, the trajector is not

250 Rune Nyord

necessarily located spatially above the landmark, but is instead said to exert control over it:

Ex. 8� Mark 6:34 ��

‘They were as sheep with no shepherd over (i.e. controlling) them’

2.1.2 Interplay between compounds

The grammaticalized use of the lexeme is attested with the prepositions �0 and ��0.22 From the root meaning of these prepositions, one would expect the former to be mainly dynamic (corresponding to the basic PATH schema underlying the preposition �0), and the latter to be mainly static (fitting the SURFACE schema of the preposition with that of the noun). In the usages where the two compound prepositions can be directly compared, this view appears to be mainly correct. This relationship can be illustrated by the Parable of the Sower in the Gospel of Luke. Here, it is first described how seeds being sown fall in different places, and the description of the seed falling on rocky ground use the two prepositions under discussion in an illustrative fashion. First, it is said:

Ex. 9� Luke 8:6 ��

‘Others fell on the rocks’

The dynamic movement of the trajector (seeds) down towards the upper surface of the landmark (rock) is here appropriately described with the compound preposition ��0. After the parable is finished, the interpretation is presented. Now, the seeds are conceptualized as having already been sown, thus now lying statically on the rock:

Ex. 10�Luke 8:13 ��

‘Those which are on the rock are those who hear, but do not receive the word joyfully’

In this case the situation is described non0verbally and with the preposition ��0, denoting fundamentally a state of rest upon the upper surface of the landmark.

The same basic distribution is also found when the words are used in the metaphorical sense of CONTROL presented above, where the trajector

22 In its concrete meaning ‘head’, the word �� is found also after the preposition �,

‘under’ (John 20:12), and in the abstract sense of ‘end’ also with ��0, ‘from’ and �0, ‘to’ (Mark 13:27).


has authority over the landmark without necessarily being located spatially over it. Thus, when a situation is described where someone receives authority, conceptualized as dynamic placement over the landmark, the preposition ��0 is used:

Ex. 11�Acts 20:28 ��

‘... the whole flock over which the Holy Spirit placed you as overseers’

On the other hand, when the situation is static (again, typically expressed non0verbally), the preposition ��0 is preferred:

Ex. 12�John 3:31 ��

‘He who has come from heaven is above everyone’

As one might expect, however, there is no clear0cut line between when a situation is construed as static and when it is to be regarded as dynamic, and in practice there is a certain overlap between the two prepositions in this regard. Thus, while ��0 is used primarily and most frequently when an explicit change of location (or, metaphorically, status) is intended, it is also occasionally used in cases where no change or movement is referred to.23 A case particularly susceptible to variation between the two prepositions is that of verbs in the stative. Precisely as one might expect from the analysis so far, this is a case that can be construed either statically or dynamically, and correspondingly the two prepositions are often used to describe very similar scenarios.

Ex. 13�Matthew 23:22 ��

‘And he who will swear by heaven, he swears by the throne of God and him who sits on it.’

Ex. 14�Revelation 20:11 ��

‘I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it.’

In such cases the difference in meaning is very slight, the cases with ��0 apparently putting slightly more emphasis on the movement leading to the state of affairs described (possibly underlined further in Ex. 13 by the presence of ��). Though stative constructions provide a

23 This use is likely related to what can be analysed as an instance of ‘end0point focus’

for the preposition � in earlier stages of the language (the precursor of �0), where the preposition expresses adherence without literal movement, cf. Nyord, ZÄS 137, p. 39.

252 Rune Nyord

good example, there are also cases with active verbs where the choice between static and dynamic may be ambiguous because the actual movement through space to reach the destination is not particularly salient, e.g. the placing of a lamp on a lamp stand,24 or mounting an animal to ride it.25

To a certain extent, such variance may also be due to differences in the construal of the landmark. For instance, ��, ‘precipice’ may be seen as a near0vertical SURFACE, so that a trajector running off the cliff can be related to the precipice by either of the two prepositions: ��0 to denote movement off the cliff0surface over the edge, or ��0 to denote movement down over the surface of the cliff.26

2.1.3. Uses particular for ��

The prototypical meaning of ��0 is a movement ending on the upper surface of the landmark. The movement seems to usually have a downwards direction (e.g. falling to the ground in Acts 22:7), but as exemplified above, it can also be directed upwards (Ex. 2), so that the directionality is not ultimately decisive for the use of this preposition.

An extended use of the preposition makes it refer to an upper surface in an abstract way where things added to a sum are conceptualized as being stacked upon the latter (MORE IS UP):

24 Compare e.g. ��0 in Matthew 5:15 with ��0 in Luke 11:33. 25 E.g. ��0 in Mark 11:2 vs. ��0 in Matthew 21:7. 26 Compare ��0 in Matthew 8:32 and Luke 8:33 with ��0 in Mark 5:15.

Figure 3. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘head’.


Ex. 15�Matthew 6:27 ��

‘Who among you, by worrying, is able to add one cubit to his height?’

This usage can be further abstracted so that anything being added, even where no literal verticality is involved, can be expressed with ��0:


‘He who adds to it (sc. the book), God shall add upon him the plagues written in this book’

A different line of extension is found when, in exceptional cases, the preposition can be used to denote a movement that goes just beyond the surface of the landmark, penetrating it:27

Ex. 17�John 20:25 ��

‘If I do not see the marks of nails in his hand and thrust my finger into the marks of nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe!’

The metaphorical projection based on the conceptual metaphor CONTROL IS UP has already been described and exemplified above (Ex. 8). A second metaphorical extension is made on the basis of the inherent notion of SUPPORT via the ontological metaphor CAUSALITY IS

SUPPORT. Here, the compound preposition comes to express that the trajector is causally dependent on the landmark. This is particularly frequent with expressions for emotions caused by certain beings or states of affairs, which are conceptualized as a SUPPORT for the emotion in question:

Ex. 18�1 John 3:17 ��

‘… and he sees his brother in need, and he does not feel pity for him…’

27 Thus the compound preposition can denote in such cases what Brugman and

Macauley refer to as the ‘shallow subregion’ (‘Interacting Semantic Systems’, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 12 (1986), p. 318), as it seems to be the case also for the Coptic constructions that the landmark must have a larger total depth, only the uppermost fraction of which is denoted by the preposition.

254 Rune Nyord

Such examples might be taken to indicate that the notion of VERTICALITY is projected to indicate a certain sense of social superiority, but this does not seem to be the case generally. As the following example shows, the meaning of the preposition in this usage appears to be simply that a state of affairs forms the metaphorical basis for a certain emotion:

Ex. 19�Luke 1:47 ��

‘My spirit has rejoiced over God, my saviour’

On the other hand, when used to introduce objects of sensory perception, the preposition seems to indicate mostly that the perceiver is looking down upon the landmark, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the literal and the metaphorical in this usage, as in this example of a possessed person:

Ex. 20�Luke 9:38 ��

‘I am begging you to look at my son, for he is my only born.’

A related usage has the preposition refer more abstractly to what is conceptualized as the basis for an act or state of affairs. Thus, doing something in the name of another can be construed as having that name as a metaphorical basis:


‘And he who shall receive one such little child in my name, it is me he receives.’

Similarly, a writing or utterance can be said to be made on the basis of someone in the sense that is about the person in question:

Ex. 22�Mark 9:1228 ��

‘He said to them, when Elijah comes he will complete all things, and how has it been written of the Son of Man, that he would suffer many pains and be despised.’

This usage is also found with the emotions characteristic of, or motivating, a particular act:

28 Cf. also the similar usage in Galatians 3:16.


Ex. 23�1 Corinthians 9:10 �� !��

‘The one who ploughs should plough in hope, and the one threshing in hope that he may partake.’

A different metaphorical extension is found when various things are conceptualized as coming down from above. This meaning of the preposition is closely related to the prototypical one of (downwards) movement towards a horizontal surface, the difference being that the trajectors do no not literally come from above. This use is found as the conceptualization of a wide range of phenomena, of which the most predictable is perhaps that of various divine blessings which are said to descend from above, e.g.:29

Ex. 24�Luke 11:20 ��

‘The kingdom of God has reached you.’

In a broadly similar manner, a number of bad things are also conceptualized as striking their victims from above:30

Ex. 25�John 18:4 ��

‘Knowing all the things that were coming upon him, Jesus went forth.’

Certain powerful emotions and mental states are conceptualized in a similar way as forces descending from above upon the person experiencing them. This is particularly frequent with experiences of fear and wonder:

Ex. 26�Luke 1:12 �� "!��

‘Zachariah became troubled when he saw it, and fear fell upon him.’

Two final main usages of the preposition project the notions of VERTICALITY into the social domain. The first case is an extension of the usage based on the metaphor CONTROL IS UP exemplified above (Ex. 8). With the dynamic sense inherent in the simple preposition �0, the meaning here becomes one of actively acquiring control over someone,

29 Also with non0verbal predicates in Galatians 3:14 (‘blessing of Abraham upon the

Gentiles’) and Luke 4:18 (‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’). 30 Also with non0verbal predicates e.g. in Romans 2:9 (‘Both trouble and pain upon

the soul of every man who works evil’) and 11:22 (‘Severity upon those who have fallen, but the kindness of God upon you, as long as you continue in kindness’).

256 Rune Nyord

which most often implies some degree of hostility. This is found particularly of persons of authority seeking to arrest or otherwise gain control over someone:

Ex. 27�Luke 20:1 ��!��

‘The chief priests and the scribes and the elders came upon him.’

From this basis, the meaning develops further to denote more general hostility:

Ex. 28�Matthew 10:21 ��

‘And the children will rise up against their parents and kill them.’

Finally, this usage develops to the point of being capable of denoting the abstract relationship of a crime or transgression to its victim:

Ex. 29�Mark 10:11 ��

‘And he said to them, ‘He who casts out his wife and marries another, he commits adultery against her”.’

The second social projection is perhaps less predictable. In this usage, the preposition is used distributively of a group of persons to whom something is given or done. This usage is difficult to relate to either the SURFACE or VERTICALITY elements of the meaning of 0��0, and it seems most likely that it is derived directly from the original meaning of the word as ‘head’. The distributive meaning would then be projected from this by means of the metonymy HEAD FOR PERSON. This metonymical extension is especially frequent with the verb ��, ‘divide’:

Ex. 30�Luke 15:12 ��

‘He divided his property among them.’

But it is also found in other cases where only this distributive meaning appears to be applicable:

Ex. 31�Matthew 12:49 � ��

‘He stretched out his hand towards his disciples, saying: “Look, these are my mother and my brothers”.’


2.1.3. Uses particular for ��

The most frequent special use of ��0 is the ablative meaning of the preposition when used with verbs of movement. In such cases, rather than describing the trajector being statically present on the landmark (as in 0), or moving onto its surface (as in Ex. 2), it expresses a movement away from this position.

Ex. 32�Mark 9:9 ��

‘As they were coming down from the mountain, he commanded them not to reveal what they had seen to anyone.’

A metaphorical extension parallel to one of the usages of ��0 is found with expressions of bad things as descending upon their victims. As one would expect from the basic meanings of the two compound prepositions, ��0 in this case focuses on the static aspect of the disaster as a state of affairs, typically with the verb ��:

Ex. 33�Mark 15:33 �� #��

‘And when it was the sixth hour, darkness was over all the land until the ninth hour.’

Here, an abstract absence of light is conceptualized by means of an ontological metaphor as an entity hovering over or resting upon the area influenced.

2.2. ��, ‘face of’ > ‘(socially) exposed surface/aspect of’31

2.2.1. Semantic structure

The noun for ‘face’ is found in the NT in grammaticalized compounds only in combination with the simple preposition �0, whereby the role of the face becomes predominantly that of a (metonymical, metaphorical or literal) target for various actions. Most of these are of a social nature in which the involvement of the face is metonymical, as the preposition is used to express particularly intense or direct actions.

31 Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 272f; Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 646b0

650a; Vycichl, Dictionaire étymologique, p. 286f; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch, p. 351f; Johnson, Chicago Demotic Dictionary, Ḥ (09:01), p. 1910199; Spiegelberg, Demotische Grammatik, pp. 1530155 (§§3400345).

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With the verb ��, ‘divide’, the preposition can be used to denote each individual member of the group among whom something is divided, not unlike the usage also seen with ��0, ‘to the head of’:32

Ex. 34�Matthew 27:35 ��

‘They divided his clothes among themselves and they cast lot over them.’

In the rest of the cases, the preposition is used along with the adverbial �� to mark a particularly intense, direct, or downright hostile action, often in combination with verbs which in themselves are quite neutral.33 The most frequent such use in our corpus is with verbs of visual perception, where marked Greek verbs such as ἐ?βλέπω, ‘look intently’ and ἀτενίζω, ‘stare’ are translated with the relatively neutral Coptic verb ��, ‘look’34 followed by �� to give the nuance of intensity:

Ex. 35�Mark 10:21 ��

‘As Jesus gazed (Gr. ἐ?βλέπω) at him (αὐτῷ), he came to love him.’

An even stronger effect may be obtained in Coptic by combining a more marked verb (in the example ��, ‘stare’) with ��:

Ex. 36�Acts 3:4 ��

‘Peter stared (Gr. ἀτενίζω) at him (εἰϛ αὐτὸν) together with John, and they said to him: ...’

When the Greek text speaks only of ‘spitting’ with the person spat at as direct object or introduced by a preposition, the Coptic translation appears to use the preposition just as much to express the directness and hostility of the act as to imply the precise body part targeted by the act (which is not specified in the Greek original):

32 Cf. the similar use in Demotic for the abstract mathematical procedure of dividing

one number by another, Johnson, Chicago Demotic Dictionary P (10:1), p. 165. 33 In this usage, the whole compound �� comes to play the role of the

status pronominalis of �� 0, ‘into’, cf. Shisha0Halevy, Coptic Grammatical Categories, p. 30 (§1.1.2.1, C, 3) with refs.

34 Cf. Depuydt, L., ‘“Voir” et “regarder” en copte. Étude synchronique et diachronique’, RdE 36 (1985), pp. 35042.


Ex. 37�Matthew 27:30 ��

‘They spat at him (Gr. εἰϛ αὐτὸν), they took the reed and struck at his head’

While such examples of acts indicating social relations are the most numerous,35 a few metaphorical examples should be mentioned as well. The first still has human beings as the object of an act, but in this case, the assailant is a storm, which is not likely literally to affect only the face, but strikes the persons in question with a directness and intensity prompting the use of the preposition, perhaps in addition to the storm being experienced particularly as beating against the face:

Ex. 38�Acts 27:14 ��

‘A little later, a stormy wind struck us’

A further development along this line is found in the final example, where both the trajector and the landmark are inanimate, although again the nuance of a direct and intense movement targeting the landmark is the same as in the other examples:

Ex. 39�Luke 6:49 ��

‘He is like a man who built his house on earth without foundation, on which suddenly the river burst’

2.3. ��0/��, ‘mouth of’ > ‘main opening of’36


The semantic structure of the human body as a container of which the mouth is the main opening for entering or leaving is projected metaphorically to a number of other things with a salient CONTAINER structure. In the first instance, this can be applied to bodily orifices other than the mouth:

35 H.J. Polotsky gives the following list of the kind of verbs that are used with this

preposition to introduce the object of the act, of which only looking, spitting and striking are attested in our corpus: ‘“speak”, “cry”, “breathe”, “spit”, “gaze”, “smite”, “hit”, “kick”, etc.’, H.J. Polotsky, ‘Review of W.E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary, Parts II0V’, JEA 25 (1939), p. 113.

36 Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 134f; Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 288a0290a; Vycichl, Dictionaire étymologique, p. 171; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch, p. 387; Johnson, Chicago Demotic Dictionary, R (01:1), pp. 204 and Ḥ (09:1), p. 205 (s.v. ��); Spiegelberg, Demotische Grammatik, p. 149f (§331f).

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Ex. 40�Acts 7:57

� ��

‘They held their hands over their ears’

The preposition is used here to designate the landmark as a relevant entrance to a container, and further in this case (with the simple preposition �0) as the end0point of a movement. The most usual domain to which this structure is projected metaphorically is that of buildings, where the door, gate or similar are perfect candidates for being marked with the compound preposition.37

Ex. 41�John 18:16 ��

‘Peter was standing outside at the door’

Interestingly, since the compound preposition itself implies the structure of a container with an access point, it can also be sensibly used with the container, rather than the entrance, as landmark:

Ex. 42�Acts 11:11 ��

‘They came to (the entrance of) the house in which I was’

Here, the word implies that the visitors go to the door of the building without explicitly mentioning this part of the house (the Greek has simply ἐπί τὴν οἰκίαν, ‘at the house’).38 Conversely, the preposition may

37 Naturally bolstered by the long0standing presence in Egyptian of a cognate noun

with the specific meaning ‘door’. 38 The ambiguity where the preposition can be followed either by a noun denoting the

entrance or one denoting the entire structure can be accounted for with reference to Langacker’s notion of active zone, defined in the following way: ‘Those facets of an entity capable of interacting directly with a given domain or relation are referred to as the �� of the entity with respect to the domain or relation in question’, Langacker, R.W., Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites, Stanford 1987, p. 272f, emphasis in original). Thus, in the sentence ‘We all heard the trumpet’, the active zone of ‘trumpet’ in relation to the verb ‘hear’ is not, as usually, the brass object itself, but rather the sound emitted by this object when played. In a similar way, the active zone of a noun denoting an entire structure with respect to the preposition �� is its entrance. Just as one could also specify ‘We all heard the sound of the trumpet’ with little

Figure 4. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘face’.


designate the door of a building as a discrete object, rather than explicitly as an entrance to a container:

Ex. 43�Acts 12:13 ��

‘As he knocked on the door of the porch, a servant girl named Rhoda came out to answer’

In this example, the door leaf itself (or another tangible part suitable for knocking) is referred to somewhat exceptionally, no doubt motivated by the culturally salient practice of knocking on the door with the specific purpose of gaining access or making others come out, which in turn implies strongly again the role of the door as entrance to a container.


As one would expect, the main difference between the use of �0 and ��0 is whether movement towards the opening is salient, or whether the location at the door is considered static. Thus the following case with the simple preposition �0 can be contrasted with the static example with ��0 cited above (Ex. 41):

Ex. 44�Acts 10:17 ��

‘They sought the house of Simon, and they came to the door’

2.3.3 Uses particular for ��

The notion of movement ending at an entrance is well0suited for referring to acts of blocking an opening with an object. This was seen already in the case of blocking the ears with the hands (Ex. 40), but can also occur with containers other than the body, e.g. a cave.

Ex. 45�Matthew 27:60 � ��

‘He rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and departed’

This use can in turn be projected metaphorically to cases where more abstract things are closed or sealed. In such cases, there may be no literal movement implied by the preposition �0, which is motivated by the basis of the metaphor in literal scenarios like the one in the last example. Thus, we find:

discernible change in meaning, the entrance can also be specified as the landmark of the preposition.

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Ex. 46�Revelation 10:4

�� 0 ��

‘Seal what the seven thunders spoke, and do not write it’

Here, the seal is seen as metaphorically blocking an opening, thereby making access to the contents impossible. A step further towards abstraction is a metaphor found in the First Epistle of Peter:

Ex. 47�1 Peter 2:15 ��

‘For such is the will of God, that you do good and (thus) shut up the ignorance of these foolish men’

In this passage, the act of silencing or putting an end to ignorance is expressed metaphorically as ‘shutting up’, an expression which once again evokes the scenario of putting an object in or over an opening to block access, thus eliciting the use of ��0 in a purely abstract sense. In both of these examples, the underlying notion that writing and thought have contents that can be more or less readily accessed is based on what is known as the CONDUIT metaphor39 according to which communication consists of metaphorical packages with contents sent between communicators. In our case, the entrance to these containers is blocked, whereby access to the contents becomes impossible.


As with other of the compound prepositions discussed here, the combination with the simple preposition ��0 has a dynamic sense in add0

39 See Reddy, M., ‘The Conduit Metaphor. A Case of Frame Conflict in Our

Language about Language’, in: Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge 1979, pp. 2840324, and, for evidence of the metaphor in Middle Egyptian, Nyord, ‘Prototype structures and conceptual metaphor’, in: Grossman, Polis and Winand (eds.), Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian, p. 169f.

Figure 5. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘mouth’.


dition to the static one illustrated above, and as usual, this dynamic sense is ablative, marking the trajector as moving away from the entrance to a container. The following example shows the complementarity with �0 when compared to Ex. 45 above:

Ex. 48�John 20:1 ��

‘She saw that the stone had been lifted away from the tomb’

The combination of a verb entailing movement with the preposition ��0 in this case, as regularly, gives the meaning of an ablative movement, further underlined here, as often, with the adverbial ��.


A somewhat different path of extension from the concrete meaning ‘mouth’ is taken when the word is compounded with the simple preposition �0. In this case, the prototypical connection of the mouth with eating is retained, so that the spatial relationship of something being ‘under the mouth of’ someone comes to refer metonymically to food being served to the person in question. This is most straightforwardly used of preparations for a meal:

Ex. 49�Mark 6:41 ��

‘He broke the loaves and he gave them to his disciples that they might set them before them (i.e. serve them)’

It may also be used in a slightly more abstract sense where the trajector is not literally suitable for food, but only metaphorically referred to as such:


‘Do not throw your precious stones before the pigs’

Figure 6. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘bosom’�

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2.4. ��0 / ��, ‘bosom40 of’ > ‘vicinity of’41


The prototypical meaning of the noun seems to be the area immediately surrounding a person, without implying any particular relative orientation or interaction.

Ex. 51�Acts 8:31 � ��

‘He called Philip to come up and sit near him’

This can be extended metaphorically to inanimate objects as well, and the scale is adjusted accordingly. Thus, it is used several times of the immediate vicinity of a geographical location:

Ex. 52�Acts 27:4 ��

‘We took off from that place and sailed close to Cyprus’


As one would expect from its constituent elements, ��0 signifies basically a movement into the immediate vicinity of a person, object or

40 The etymological origin of this word is unclear, and the meaning ‘bosom’ may in this case be derived from the compound preposition, rather than the other way around. A suggestion made long ago would connect the word with a designation for leg or foot, cf. F.Ll. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis. The Sethon of Herodotus and the Demotic Tales of Khamuas, Oxford 1900, p. 132 and W. Spiegelberg, ‘Koptische Miszellen’, ZÄS 53 (1917), p. 138f (both connecting the word to old ��, ‘sandal’), and Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 200 who remarks ‘The meaning “bosom” is

perhaps secondary, and the word is identical with Gr.0R. (Wb. V, 250, 13), � ��, “leg”, lit. “support (of the body)”’. If this connection with a term associated with feet or legs is correct, the spatial extension of the concept would be closely parallel to that of ��, ‘feet’, discussed below. Another suggestion would see the origin of the word in old ��, ‘head’ (via a phonetic change � > �� > �), cf. B.H. Stricker, ‘Φριτοβαυτης’, OMRO 24 (1943), p. 34 and id., ‘De strijd om de praebende van Amon’, OMRO 29 (1948), p. 76 n. 1, followed by A. Volten, Ägypter und Amazonen. Eine demotische Erzählung des Inaros�Petubastis�Kreises aus zwei Papyri der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Pap. Dem. Vindob. 6165 und 6165 A), Vienna 1962, p. 77, but opposed by F. Hoffmann, Ägypter und Amazonen. Neubearbeitung zweier demotischer Papyri P.Vindob. D 6165 und P.Vindob. D6165 A, Vienna 1995, p. 58f n. 176. The question of the etymology of the word has not been conclusively solved (see Johnson, J., Chicago Demotic Dictionary, T (12:01), p. 108 for further references), and must thus be left open for now.

41 Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 200; Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 444b; Johnson, J., Chicago Demotic Dictionary, T (12:01), p. 108f; Vycichl, Dictionaire étymologique, p. 223; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch, p. 251; Spiegelberg, Demotische Grammatik, p. 160f (§§3590360).


place. In the last example cited, this is illustrated on a geographical scale, but it can also refer to people gathering to meet:

Ex. 53�1 Corinthians 7:5 ��

‘And come again near each other.’


All of the occurrences of this expression in the NT refer to the immediate spatial vicinity of a person, as illustrated in Ex. 51 above, without implicating any particular further (e.g. social) connection between trajector and landmark. This usage gives rise to what is by far the most frequent employment of this compound, namely in the lexicalized expression (�)��, ‘(the one) who is near’, used to translate the theological notion of Greek πλησίον, ‘neighbour’ as well as the more concrete γείτων translated in the same way:


‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour (Gr. πλησίον)”’

Ex. 55�Luke 14:12 ��

‘Do not call your friends, nor your brothers, nor your relatives, nor your rich neighbours (Gr. γείτων)’

2.5. ��0 / ��, ‘hand of’ > ‘reach/possession of’42


The semantic prototype related to 0��0 is the spatial sphere immediately surrounding a person within which objects can be reached without moving. The precise meaning of this metonymic space, as opposed to something actually held in the hand, can be illustrated with the following example:

42 Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 193; Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 425a0

429b; Vycichl, Dictionaire étymologique, p. 219f; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch, p. 249; Johnson, Chicago Demotic Dictionary, Ḏ (01:1), pp. 60065; Spiegelberg, Demotische Grammatik, p. 1610164 (§§3610369).

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Ex. 56�John 18:10 �� !��

‘Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear’

The sequence of events in this example makes it clear that �� $�� refers to carrying a sword with him, and thus having it available, rather than concretely holding the sword or abstractly owning it (e.g. having a sword at home), not unlike the English idiom of something being ‘at hand’. Thus, the preposition can also be used to denote leaving something in the care of others without giving up ownership:

Ex. 57�2 Timothy 4:13 ��

‘When you come, bring my cloak which I left behind in Troas with Carpus’

In such examples, the word retains the notion of something being immediately available to someone, and when this is not the case, other possessive constructions are preferred. Thus, the word is perfectly suited for cases where usufruct is at issue, as it involves precisely the transference of an object to make it available to someone else:

Ex. 58�Matthew 21:33 � ��

‘He gave it (sc. a vineyard) over to some vinedressers (i.e., he rented it out) and went on a journey’

In the competition with the various other ways of expressing possession in Coptic, 0��0 comes to be used particularly in a dynamic sense of various such transfers of possession, the precise sense of which varies somewhat with the different combinations with simple prepositions.


As one would expect from the core meaning of the simple preposition, ��0 is used of the transfer of an object into the possession or sphere of influence of a person or group, as particularly frequently with a person coming under the control of a figure of authority:



‘Lest he who litigates against you deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you are thrown in prison’

In the same way, it is predictable that ��0, together with a verb of motion, is used to denote the movement out of the sphere of influence:

Ex. 60�John 18:28 ��

‘Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium’

This usage, however, is not nearly as frequent as one might have expected in comparison with other compounds, as it is found only when a concrete spatial movement away from the landmark is at issue. The main usages of the compound preposition ��0 then consist of a series of abstractions from this basic dynamic sense, to be treated in more detail below. The reason for this unusual distribution of meanings is most likely the exceptional survival for this body part of the old compound �� (��0)43, which takes over a number of the usages otherwise associated with the preposition ��0 in combinations with the other body part terms. Thus when speaking of something which is taken away from someone with no salient movement involved, ��0 is generally used:44

Ex. 61�Matthew 25:28 ��

‘So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents’

In the metaphorical projections of the two compound prepositions ��0 and ��0, the basic distinction between movement and lack of movement becomes much less clear, and thus a number of overlaps are found in the uses of the two prepositions in this sense. Thus, when referring to a person from whom something is asked or obtained, ��0 will usually be the natural choice, but in cases where the trajector is

43 For the Late Egyptian use of this preposition, see now Grossmann, E. and Polis, S.,

‘Navigating polyfuntionality in the lexicon. Sematic maps and ancient Egyptian lexical semantics’, in: Grossmann, E., Polis, S. and Winand, J. (eds.), Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian (=LingAeg Studia Monographica 9), Hamburg 2012, pp. 2040206.

44 For the similar meaning of �� in Demotic, cf. Malinine, M., ‘Une Livraison d’oies au Domaine d’Amon (Pap. Dém. Strasbourg no 2)’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 54 (1968), p. 191 n. b.

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more abstract, e.g. information or the answer to a question, ��0 may be found instead:

Ex. 62�Matthew 2:4 � �� !�� !��

‘He gathered all the high priests and the scribes of the people, and he asked of them where the Christ would be born’

This main distribution of meanings between the three attested compounds with 0��0 in our corpus gives rise to a number of specific extensions of each compound.


The notion of an object moving into the sphere of influence of a person is clearly in close competition with a number of other possessive expressions, most notably the simple dative �0/��. It is thus not surprising that the preposition ��0 is relatively rare and restricted to a small group of more abstract usages. A few have already been exemplified above, namely the transference of usufruct to a person or group and coming under the control of a powerful person or group.45 A particularly frequent extended use of the preposition is with the verb ��, ‘command’, where the preposition is used to express the notion that the command is given into the possession of the person commanded:


‘He did as the angel of the Lord had commanded to him’

An abstract usage found a few times in the NT corpus is the idiomatic expression ��, literally ‘add to one’s hand’, with the sense ‘to do something again’ or ‘in addition’:46

Ex. 64�Luke 19:11 ��

‘As they heard these things, he spoke another parable’

The pronoun in such constructions refers to the subject, so that the underlying notion is that acts that have been accomplished are metaphorically in the ‘hand’ or ‘possession’ of the agent, and thus ‘adding to one’s possessions’ means to carry out an action that in one

45 Often, but not necessarily, a person of authority – as exemplified by the robbers in

Luke 10:30. 46 Sim. Luke 20:11, 20:12; Acts 12:3


sense or another can be conceptualized as an addition to a previous action.


As described above, the prototypical sense of ��0 is the ablative use expressing a movement out of the sphere of influence or possession of a person. This movement can be concrete (as in Ex. 60 above) or it can be abstract, as in:


‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil’

The relationship of this use with the ablative sense of the simple preposition �$�0 can be illustrated by the following example:


‘And a great voice came out of the temple from the throne’

The sound is coming out from inside the temple, which is conceptualized here as a CONTAINER using the preposition ��0. The specific origin of the sound is the throne, but the sound originates in this case not inside the throne, but rather in its immediate vicinity, and for this reason ��0 is used in the second case.

The notion of ablative movement gives rise to a series of metaphorical projections. The first to be treated here is based on the metaphor ORIGIN IS POINT OF DEPARTURE, which leads to the use of the compound preposition to denote the origin of a particular thing, even when it is not literally a starting point for movement (though often it can be difficult to determine to what degree literal movement is involved):


‘And after three days and a half, a spirit of life came from God and entered into them’

Another important projection is related to this one by the notion of an ‘action chain’ in the sense of Langacker47 in which an action is conceptualized as a movement along a path with its starting point in the agent. Through the metaphorical action chain, the spatially ablative

47 Langacker, R.W., Cognitive Grammar, pp. 3550357.

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sense of the preposition comes to frequently denote the agent behind a particular event:

Ex. 68�Luke 6:18 ��

‘Those who were tormented by the unclean spirits became well’

The notion of starting point or origin can also be projected into the related domain of causality. In this metaphorical projection, the preposition comes to denote the original cause of an event, conceptualized as its starting point. This usage is also found several times with the cause of emotions:


‘And I wrote this, lest I come and have grief from those over whom I ought to rejoice’

The interplay with ��0 mentioned above (2.5.2) is also the most likely explanation that a set of meanings of ��0 are found which are not paralleled in any of the other compound prepositions.48 As has been seen, the general locative and ablative meanings are found both with ��0 and ��0, which is only natural as both meanings are found also with the simple prepositions ��0 and �0. At the same time, the two simple prepositions also have distinct differences in their meanings, and because of the survival in this case of the combination with �0, certain of these differences are retained in the compounds with 0��0. The basic meaning of �0 (old �) is that of CONTAINMENT,49 which means that this preposition is particularly suitable for expressing the bounded sphere inherent in notions of possession. On the other hand, one of the main elements of the semantics of �� (old ��) is that of SURFACE and 20dimensionally unbounded localization,50 a notion which plays an

48 The diachronic development of the state of affairs found in Coptic falls outside the

scope of this paper, but cf. e.g. Stricker, B.H., ‘Het semantisch subjekt in het Demotisch’, OMRO 35 (1954), pp. 67071, for the changes in the distribution of agentive meaning between the two prepositions from Demotic to Coptic.

49 As argued and illustrated for the Middle Egyptian stage of the language in Nyord, ZÄS 137 (2010), pp. 29ff.

50 Cf. the characterizations of the meaning of this preposition in Stauder0Porchet, J., La preposition en égyptien de la première phase. Approche sémantique (=Aegyptiaca Helvetica 21), Basel 2009, pp. 2310237 et passim; Gracia Zamacona, C., ‘Space, Time and Abstract Relations in the Coffin Texts’, ZÄS 137 (2010), p. 14; the general use of the preposition for indicating the SURFACE image schema in Nyord, Breathing Flesh, passim; and most recently the proposed analysis ‘with a profiled basic meaning SUPERIOR besides AT’ by Werning, D.A., ‘Ancient Egyptian Prepositions for the Expression of Spatial


important role in the further developments of the compound ��0. Apart from the generally ablative meaning illustrated above, the SURFACE schema inherent in the preposition ��0 means that the compound ��0 comes to mean more specifically also a movement across the area of general proximity denoted by 0��0. Combined with the general ablative meaning, ��0 then comes to denote in the first instance a movement through the vicinity of the landmark ending outside of that vicinity:

Ex. 70�Matthew 27:39 ��

‘But those passing by him blasphemed him, shaking their heads’

By a further process of semantic specification, this meaning is narrowed down to denoting primarily a movement from one side of the landmark to the opposite, the movement again starting in the vicinity of the landmark (a meaning already implied in Ex. 70).


‘At that time, Jesus went through the sown fields on the Sabbath’

With an animate plural landmark denoting a group of people, the preposition can similarly refer to a movement from one side of the group to the other, thus denoting movement among the people:

Ex. 72�Acts 20:25 ��

‘And now look, I know that you will see my face no more, all you among whom I went about proclaiming the kingdom of Jesus’

The final step in this conceptual extension is the eventual abstraction away from the notion of SURFACE, leaving only the notion of movement within the vicinity of the landmark starting on one side of it and ending on the other, disregarding the actual shape of the landmark. Thus, the preposition comes to denote ultimately a movement going through a landmark which in one way or another allows passage for the trajector:51 Relations and their Translations. A Typological Approach’, in: Grossmann, E., Polis, S. and Winand, J. (eds.), Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian (=LingAeg Studia Monographica 9), Hamburg 2012, p. 306 n. 16.

51 The exact manner of this movement depends on the nature of the landmark and trajector, e.g. travelling through a geographical location (Mark 7:31, Luke 17:11, John 4:4), passing something through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25) or a cot lowered through the roof of a house (Luke 5:19).

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‘Go in through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who shall go in through it’

This concrete spatial meaning of movement through a landmark gives rise to a series of metaphorical projections unique for this compound preposition. Thus, a person acting by means of an intermediary in one sense or another can be said to act ‘through’ the intermediary:

Ex. 74�John 1:17 �� !�� !��

‘For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ’

Here, the notion that God is the ultimate origin of the divine gifts motivates the construal that they reach their destination by going ‘through’ Moses and Jesus Christ, respectively. As can be seen from the example, this usage can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from the usage of the compound preposition to denote an agent as the ultimate origin of an action discussed above (Ex. 68).52

Another metaphorical projection, again similar to English usage, is that actions can happen ‘through’ an instrument.53

Ex. 75�2 John 12 �� !�� "��

‘As I have many things to write to you, I did not want to speak by means of ink and paper, but I am hoping to come to you, and to speak with you mouth to mouth’

The frequent conceptual metaphor TIME IS SPACE makes it possible for the preposition to be used also of the period of time through which an event takes place, the more precise meaning of the preposition being projected to refer to a point in time (immediately) before the landmark through to one (immediately) after:

52 In the case of the quoted passage the understanding is confirmed mainly by the use

in the Greek original of the preposition διὰ, ‘through’. 53 The underlying conceptual metaphor has been discussed in Nyord, ZÄS 137 (2010),

p. 32f.


Ex. 76�Luke 23:8 ��

‘For he had been wishing to see him for a long time’


In its static use, this compound preposition is used to express a concrete object being in someone’s possession, often, but not necessarily, in the actual hand:

Ex. 77�John 13:29 �� $�� !��

‘For some thought, since Judas had the moneybag, that Jesus said to him: “Buy what we need for the feast”’

As stated above, the preposition ��0 is used correspondingly in its dynamic sense to describe an object being taken or given away from someone’s possession. In a more abstract extension, the compound preposition can also be used to refer to hearing or learning something from someone, in which case the information or teaching is conceptualized as an object changing ownership (KNOWLEDGE IS A

POSSESSION), e.g.:

Ex. 78�Mark 15:45 �� !��"��

‘And when he had learned from the centurion (sc. that Jesus was dead), he granted the body of Jesus to Joseph’

Similarly, one can metaphorically ‘have’ or ‘hold’ a particular view, similarly to English:

Ex. 79�Matthew 21:2654 ��

‘For everyone hold John for a prophet’

In all cases, the trajector is conceptualized as a possession of the landmark, with the added notion in the dynamic use that the trajector is (potentially) leaving the landmark’s possession.

2.5.6 Uses particular for ��0

The simple preposition �0 not surprisingly adds a notion of VERTICALITY to the compound ��0. The addition of this nuance to the

54 Cf. also Luke 7:2, ��, “He was precious to him”.

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basic notion of ‘reach’ yields the prototype of an object resting on the ground within reach of the landmark.55 As might perhaps be expected, this prototypical sense is rarely of use with a living person as landmark, since in such cases the location on the ground would not be very salient, leading instead to the use of a different expression. However, with inanimate landmarks,56 it is often useful to stress the location on the ground, particularly with tall, vertical landmarks, e.g.:

Ex. 80�John 19:25 ��

‘And his mother, and his mother’s sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were standing by the cross of Jesus’

The notion of resting on the ground means that the compound preposition is particularly suited for referring to trajectors on the shore of a body of water, in some ways coming close to other compound prepositions denoting spatial proximity as discussed above:

Ex. 81�Luke 5:2 ��

‘And he saw two boats beached by the lake’

Likewise, the compound is well suited to express more general geographical relations of vicinity, e.g.:

55 Note that morphologically, and at least to some extent also semantically, this

preposition has merged with the etymologically distinct compound preposition ��0, ‘under the heart of’, not treated separately in this paper.

56 Including reference to being buried next to a deceased person in Acts 5:10.

Figure 7. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘hand’.


Ex. 82�John 3:23 �� "��

‘And John was also baptizing in Aenon, near Salim’

This use can then also be found of being located in the general vicinity of a person without the connotations of possession found in the other compounds with 0��0:


‘For as I am not with you in the body, but with you in the spirit, I have already judged, as if I were with you, the one who has done this thing in this way’

This meaning can also be projected metaphorically to refer to more abstract relations of proximity as when Jesus describes his disciples’ relation to the Father:57

Ex. 84�John 14:17 ��

‘But you know him, for he shall remain with you and be in you’

A particular specification of this proximity relation is found when the preposition is used of one person staying or lodging with another:

Ex. 85�Acts 9:43 ��

‘And it happened that he stayed for many days in Joppa with a certain Simon the tanner’

This meaning can in turn be used in a more abstract sense of homecoming to a place where one belongs or can metaphorically live:


‘And we are very willing to come out of the body, and to come to the Lord’

57 Sim. e.g. John 1:2, ‘It (sc. the Word) was in the beginning with God’.

276 Rune Nyord

2.6. �� , ‘foot/feet of’ > ‘lower part/authority’58


The central meaning of �� in compound prepositions is a metaphorical projection of the actual body part, coming to denote primarily the lower part of the landmark and, by metonymical extension, also the area of the ground immediately below and surrounding this part.


The capability of the word to refer to the ground on which the landmark stands may be fleshed out in two different ways, mainly dependent on which simple preposition the compound is constructed with. The first, more literal use denotes the spatial location of an object conceptualized as immobile, and thus the area to which someone wishing to interact with the landmark has to move. The second use adds a further metaphorical chain by focusing on the ground on which the landmark stands, not as a spatial location, but rather as something which is under the control and authority of the landmark.


The lexeme is used with the simple preposition �0 to refer literally to the feet in a single case where putting a sandal on the foot is at issue (Acts 12:8), as well as in numerous examples in combination with the verb ��, ‘stand’.59 Apart from these literal uses, the notion of movement (inherent in the simple preposition �0) towards the area denoted by �� makes this compound preposition particularly useful for describing a trajector moving into the immediate vicinity of a stationary landmark in order to interact with it. Layton mentions in passing that the meaning of �� can be characterized as ‘“to” him as to one’s superior’.60 This suggestion has the advantage of conforming well to the metaphorical connection to social hierarchy of the word when used with the preposition �0 (see section 2.6.4 below), and indeed such a hypothesis can account for the majority of the occurrences in the corpus of the

58 Černý, Coptic Etymological Dictionary, p. 140; Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 302b0

303b; Vycichl, Dictionaire étymologique, p. 178f; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch, p. 167; Johnson, Chicago Demotic Dictionary, R (01:1), pp. 78080; Spiegelberg, Demotische Grammatik, p. 151 (§§3330335).

59 Cf. Crum, Coptic Dictionary, p. 537b0538b. 60 Layton, ‘Compound Prepositions in Sahidic Coptic’, in: Young (ed.) Studies

Presented to H.J. Polotsky, p. 255.


compound preposition �� as well. Thus, in a typical instance, it can be used of a petition to the emperor:

Ex. 87�Acts 25:12 ��

‘You have appealed to the emperor, and you shall go before the emperor’

Similarly, when the disciples are told to bring a mount to Jesus:

Ex. 88�Mark 11:7 ��

‘They led the colt to Jesus.’

However, the fact that more rarely the exact opposite use is found indicates that a more general explanation of the central meaning of �� should be sought. Thus, this preposition can mark not only the disciples coming to Jesus, but also conversely Jesus returning from solitary prayer and approaching the disciples:

Ex. 89�Luke 22:45 ��

‘He rose up from his prayer and went to the disciples’

Likewise, in the Parable of the Vinedressers, the preposition is used of a slave sent to the vinedressers to pick up the fruit of the harvest, in relation to whom he might perhaps be seen to be in a subordinate position although representing his master (Mark 12:2), but also of the son of the master who is ultimately sent on the same errand where he can hardly be said to be in a subordinate position (Mark 12:6).

What all these examples seem to have in common is thus not the relative hierarchical position of trajector and landmark, but rather the fact that the trajector moves purposely towards the immobile landmark in order to interact with it. This more general meaning manages to explain both why social hierarchies seem to be present in the majority of the cases and why this rule has several exceptions. In the social environment of the New Testament (and presumably elsewhere, as might be confirmed with an expanded corpus), it is the rule that a subordinate person approaches a superordinate to speak with him at the home or office of the latter. This pattern is taken over also by an itinerant preacher like Jesus, who is marked grammatically as the immobile centre of attention when people approach him.

Whereas the pattern of relative social position of trajector and landmark thus appears to be an epiphenomenon of the central meaning of the preposition, the purposefulness of the approach with the desire to

278 Rune Nyord

interact with the landmark seems to be a stable part of the evoked scenario. This can perhaps be seen most clearly in the two cases in the corpus where the landmark is constituted by inanimate objects:


‘You have gone to unspeaking idols’

Ex. 91�Mark 11:13 ��

‘And as he (sc. Jesus) saw a fig tree from afar with leaves on it, he went up to it (to see) if perhaps he would find something on it’

In both of these cases, the landmarks are regarded in a metaphorical sense as ‘persons’ which can be interacted with, and this interaction is the precise purpose of approaching the landmarks. The personification is perhaps slightly less clear in the second case, but the use of the preposition here may have been prompted by the subsequent events where Jesus speaks directly to the tree, cursing it for not bearing any fruit (Mark 11:14).

In conclusion, it seems that in all cases the preposition marks the purposeful movement of the trajector into the vicinity of the immobile landmark in order to interact socially (in a literal or metaphorical sense) with the latter. This in turn means that the landmark will often have a higher social status than the trajector, but this implication is neither a necessary nor sufficient part of the scenario evoked directly by the use of the preposition.61


In some respects, the compound preposition �� functions as the static counterpart of ��, not unlike the case with a number of the compounds with ��0 treated above. The reason that �0 takes this role rather than ��0 is most likely the particular spatial properties of the foot as a body part. Whereas ��0 for most of the other body parts can be used

61 Cf. English expressions such as ‘come/walk up to somebody’, where the

metaphorical notion of VERTICALITY inherent in ‘up’ has less to do with social hierarchy than with the goal of the movement forming the purposeful centre of attention.

Figure 8. Conceptual structure of compounds with ��, ‘foot’.


to express a fairly prototypical relation between an object and the body part, in the case of the foot an object being ‘under’ the foot is much more prototypical than one being ‘on’ or ‘at’ the foot. It may be noted in this connection that outside of the New Testament, the compound preposition �� has the dynamic meaning ‘toward’. This exceptional development is probably comparable to the case for ‘hand’ where it was seen above that the survival of the combination with �0 led to some unexpected semantic developments. As �� is not attested in our corpus, the exact conceptual developments at work are better set aside for the present purposes.

As a first step in the conceptual chaining from the prototypical reference to the area on which a person stands, �� is used several times to refer metonymically to the area near the feet of a person, as when people throw themselves down before others as a gesture of respect:

Ex. 92�Mark 5:6 ��

‘When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him and greeted him’

This area can further be projected metaphorically to the area near the bottom of non0human vertical objects such as mountains:

Ex. 93�Mark 5:11 ��

‘There, at the foot of the mountain, a great herd of sheep were feeding’

Finally, objects said to be ‘under the feet’ are metaphorically under the control of the person (via the metaphor CONTROL IS UP). Thus, in a single case the compound preposition is used to express something which is abstractly under someone’s authority, though spatially nowhere near his feet:62

Ex. 94�Matthew 8:9 �� %��

‘For I am also a man under authority, having soldiers under me.’

62 Cf. the ambiguous example in Acts 4:35, where riches are brought and placed ‘at

the feet’ of the apostles as an expression of transferring possession. In that case, however, the Greek original mentions the location near the feet explicitly, unlike in Mark 5:11.

280 Rune Nyord

3. CONCLUSION

The relatively coherent conceptual structure found for each group of compound prepositions has made it plausible to regard each noun as a radial category with a number of different, but related meanings. Apart from Houghton’s lexicographic study,63 the treatment of Coptic compound prepositions have generally pointed out the etymological origin in a noun denoting a body part, and then moved on to provide a list of possible translations in a modern language, only occasionally attempting to bridge the gap in between by noting a particular more specific nuance of meaning inherent in the Coptic word. The current study, and especially the further lexicographical studies it enables with a larger vocabulary, expanded corpus and/or diachronic dimension, makes it possible to be much more precise and explicit about the meanings of compound prepositions, both in general lexicography and when it comes to interpreting specific textual examples.

The current study has shown both a large degree of regularity and systematicity within the semantics of Coptic compound prepositions (within a closed corpus) and a clear tendency towards individual developments in the meaning of one compound not necessarily paralleled in others. Thus, a comparison between compounds of the same body part with the simple prepositions �0 and ��0 shows a general tendency towards a complementary distribution where �0 denotes a dynamic movement towards, or adherence to, the landmark, while ��0 can indicate a static position of rest at the landmark or a dynamic movement away from it.

On the other hand, most of the compounds present certain peculiarities, which, while always semantically motivated vis�à�vis more central meanings, are not strictly predictable from the individual components. This is especially true of those body parts where the survival of compounds with simple prepositions other than �0 and ��0 adds to the complexity of the situation, as these other compounds tend to become specialized for particular idiomatic uses, which in turn tends to influence the regular meanings of compounds with �0 and/or ��0. A good example is the ‘competition’ between ��0 and ��0 to denote something staying in the immediate area of a landmark or moving dynamically away from this area, which, as has been seen above, leads to the particular association of ��0 with possession and ��0 with the specialized spatial use to denote movement through a landmark.

63 Cf. note 16 above.


On a more general level, the present study has shown the suitability of a cognitive linguistic approach to analyse the semantics of even such elusive and complex categories as the Coptic compound prepositions.

conceptualizations of embodied space

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