“Shenutean Coptic” is the term applied to the idiom, including the grammatical norm and stylistic-phraseological usage, observable in the corpus of writing by the archimandrite Apa Shenute (334–451), outstanding among Coptic literary sources in that it constitutes the single most extensive homogenous and authentic testo di lingua for Sahidic and Coptic in general. […]

In the following pages, I wish to scan a neglected, if familiar, construction of Coptic for some of its most striking formal and functional, paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of significance nd implications. I refer to the construction sometimes called the “tautological”, “absolute”, or paronomastic infinitive, in which an infinitive is followed by a homolexemic (or otherwise related) finite verbal form, the two constituting together a single clause pattern: […]

The present investigation, which is to be view as a seminal or pilot study of proper-name grammar in Coptic rather than a definitive “Grammar of Proper Names”, attempts to observe the PN environmentally (in both syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions of grammatical environment, examining commutabilities and compatibilities), its syntactic incorporation, especially its signalling — the formal means for its distinction from other nominal and pronominals; its structural role, identity and role relationships. […]

(I). Aims and conception. The following reasoned collection of text is intended to serve as a means for acquiring acquaintance with the elements of Sahidic Coptic grammar, giving the student the competence and confidence which should enable him to deal subsequently with any Coptic text as far as grammatical analysis and translation is concerned; it is meant for students approaching the language for its general linguistic, Egyptological, theological or literary interests. This is neither a grammar, nor a textbook, not yet an “Introduction to Coptic”, but a custom-built annotated anthology meant as a one-year (approx. 40 weeks, 4 to 6 weekly hours) course of initiation into the analysis of Coptic texts, expressly meant as a substitute to so-called “grammars”. […]

The book before us [Callender’s Studies in the Nominal Sentence in Egyptian and Coptic] is not a reworking of the author’s 1970 University of Chicago dissertation — and this is a disappointment, for here one misses much important information on the Nominal Sentence (NS) which was provided in the dissertation, such as predicate constituency (Chap. I), predicate determination (II) and apposition (V). Yet the present monograph merits more attention than might seem called for at first glance; more, indeed, than is warranted by its contribution to our understanding of the grammatical phenomena discussed. For this is the first time that a method-conscious linguist treats this issue comprehensively, in a way representative of a major methodological trend of present-day Egyptology: the generative-transformational method.[…]

This book is not a Coptic grammar, nor is it cast in the semblance of one: it is a series of studies of a fairly central area of Coptic syntax, a detailed systematic charting of a subsystem or more or less continuous range of grammatical phenomena.

In a terminological note with the title, “The Possessive Relation Marker in Coptic” (Enchoria 12:191–193, 1984), P. Swiggers criticizes and corrects the conventional designation “possessive article” or “possessive prefix” for ⲡⲁ-/ⲧⲁ-/ⲛⲁ- “he/she/they of-” and, much less explicitly, ⲡⲉϥ- “his”. Following several arguments meant to establish that these morpheme set(s) are “neither an article, nor a prefix”, Dr. Swiggers offers to replace the current terms with a new one, namely “possessive relation-marker”, presumably for both ⲡⲁ- and ⲡⲉϥ-.

There can be no doubt that of all issues of Coptic pattern grammar, it is the Nominal Sentence that has had the most monographic attention. Whatever the reasons for this special cultivation — the relative familiarity of this pattern set (known in similar forms from Egyptian and Semitic), its (again relative) compactness and transparency as regards internal structure and external relations of its constituents, the urge of typological interest in a verbless prediction pattern — the happy outcome is that today, although many details are still controversial, the patterns have been by and large isolated and their formal (if not always functional) analysis more or less agreed upon […]