The study concerns passive voice in Earlier Egyptian (Old and Middle
Egyptian combined), providing a text-based description of the relevant
forms and constructions, and of their functions in discourse. It is
argued that the passive is not merely a symmetrical pendant to the
active, but a complex domain of its own, morphologically, semantically,
and in terms of its discourse functions. This is manifest for example in
the morphological types of inflectional passives, the productivity of
subjectless passive constructions of various sorts, or the interaction
of the passive with stative/resultative voice. Passive voice further
interacts with aspect: in the unaccomplished, the passive has fewer
forms than the active, while in the accomplished a reverse situation is
observed. The two inflectional passives in the accomplished-the
perfective V-passive (the 'sDm(w)=f') and the T-passive of the sDm.n=f
(the sDm.n.t=f)-are thus shown to contrast with one another in
principled semantic, not syntactic, ways. Major changes affecting
passive voice during the history of Earlier Egyptian are discussed: the
loss of the prospective V-passive, the spread of T-passives over the
perfective V-passive in various environments, and the rise of an
'impersonal' subject pronoun.tw out of an inflectional passive marker.
The last, a rare change and an instance of de-grammaticalization, is
analyzed in details in terms of the processes involved and of the
particular intra-linguistic situation that made it possible. Broadening
the perspective, relevant elements of the Semitic background are evoked.
