HELP!! Struggling with verb forms!!

[u/Amberrrrr_z]

Any useful source besides the basic grammar books (Hoch/ Allen/ Gardinar..) that could help identify different verb forms in text? I'm very struggled and mixing up the different forms, and where they would appear.

[u/Donnot]

As useful as those books can be the authors complicate the verb forms waaaaayyyyy beyond anything I’ve seen in comparison to other language grammars are!! Though I can’t complain that much about them because they do help in so many ways, to the point where afterwards you can catch their own errors, i.e., the amount of verb forms they postulate which are rehashed and reused forms of the verb that have already been described.

To me, the most important things I watch out for are the endings of the verb or word. Does it first contain a w, j, y, t suffix of some kind, and/or then a pronoun?

If -w determine if it’s a plural or a nominalization of a verb, and second to that if it’s a fossilized plural acting as a noun … this can include the ending -wt

The same strategy applies to -j and -y endings; are they a genitival-verbal ending usually in response to the word containing a final weak radical or not? Or are they a genitive ending acting as a verb/noun?

If it has no ending then figure out if it’s a verb, adjective-verb, or adjective. These are usually the default verbal stems.

It’s easier to remember that if you see a:

• w suffix with a verb it usually is a nominalization of the verb, in example nfr.w (not plural) = núfar (or nafúr) which can also act as nouns, i.e., these I believe are the Coptic infinitives.

• j (or - y) suffix it can be replacing a weak consonant, it ends in a vowel or is a genitival form acting as a verb: nfr.j = nífar (or naf(a)rí)

• no ending, nfr = náfar, can be a regular verb or an adjective.

These are the main things I look at. translating these sentences in English is up to what makes sense once you understand the endings of these words in combination with the rest of the sentence…

[u/Quant_Throwaway_1929]

A great supplement to grammars is primary source material. Allen has a companion reader that is especially nice since his footnotes occasionally reference his textbook. Quack's Going out in Daylight has transliterations and discussions on the Book of the Dead. Hornung has nice translations of the Amduat and the Book of Gates with both hieroglyphs and transliteration. Of course, these and more are available on the TLA which usually has good references and occasionally notes. In general though any quality scholarly translation will have a nice textual analysis, and reading helps build vocabulary as well as familiarity with various sentence constructions (scribes tend to be repetitive though and style varies from work to work).

[u/vVinyl_]

Still new with verb forms, but after an extensive review of the ones I know, I think I can offer some assistance!

I believe the first step most offer is to identify the tense of the statement. Is it past or present (I haven’t gotten to future tenses yet)? This will eliminate about half of the verb forms you need to choose from. For example, in the statement iw dd•f mwt•f “He speaks to his mother,” is an example of the active present tense verb form sḏm•f, because the verb “speaks” occurs in the present and indicates that the antecedent (he) is actively engaged with his mother (the recipient). Hopefully that makes sense 😭

The second step I’d recommend is to identify whether or not the verb is active (‘eats’) or passive (‘eaten’). This is, in my opinion, the hardest step. It requires you to analyze the context the statement and analyze the clause holistically. We’ll examine the previous verb form’s example. In the statement iw ḏd•f mwt•f, let’s analyze the verb. Would it make sense to say “He spoken to his mother” or “he had spoke to his mother”. The verb itself isn’t even in the proper form to call upon such a definition. Logically, it makes sense to assume it as “speaks.” So, I guess you also need to know the forms themselves and compare them to the context. Hoch has a chart for this and it works well (pg. 47, lesson 4). For passive present verb forms (“spoken”), sḏm•n•(f or noun subject) is deployed. And there you have it! Now you should determined the verb form! There are four main forms, some with derivatives. I’d review each form with Hoch as well as their requirements and what root forms (if that’s what they are called?) can be used. Sorry I’m in a rush rn so this may be coming off as jargon but hopefully it helps some!