Korostovtsev M. Grammaire du néo-égyptien

Moskau: Naouka, Département de la littérature orientale, 1973. — xxiii, 479 p.This is the first comprehensive Late-Egyptian grammar since the second edition of Adolf Erman's Neuägyptische Grammatik from 1933. The major difference, apart from reflecting the result of a large number of special studies which have appeared during the last decennia up to the mid 1960's, is Korostovtsev's use of more modern linguistic concepts, particularly derived from Tesnière, Lucien 1959 Eléments de syntaxe structurale. Paris: C. Klincksieck.Throughout the book the author quotes a large number of examples, presenting them in hieroglyphs, transliteration and translation. In far more instances than in Erman's grammar they are derived from ostraca and letters, though the author does not systematically distinguish between the grammatical forms used in these texts and those occurring in more official documents.
After an introduction about Late Egyptian in general and its relations with other stages of the Egyptian language the first part is devoted to phonetics and phonology. This survey of the Egyptian phonemes is fairly new, particularly the section about oppositions between pairs of phonemes. The part ends with remarks on orthography and its relation to phonology.
The core of the book consists of two parts on morphology, followed by a short one on syntax. In Morphology, part I, the author deals with the substantive, the adjective, the adverb, prepositions and particles, in the far longer part II (p. 161-408) with the verb. Particularly in part I the linguistic point of depart plays an important role, as appears from the introduction about the parts of speech (p. 40-49), i.a. discussing the distinction between "mots pleins" and "mots vides". Another characteristic conception of the author, namely that of the construction in + substantive (ergative or emphatic) is dealt with on p. 65-69.
Morphology, part II, discusses in a large number of sections the various forms of the Late-Egyptian verb, ending with a classification of the verbal forms. In general the author follows the traditional views, quoting studies of Jaroslav Černý, Edward F. Wente, and others.
The part on syntax (p. 409-467) is comparatively short since many syntactical questions have been discussed in the preceding sections. The author here only deals with classification of sentences according to their predicate, problems of parataxis and hypotaxis, and the subordinate clause.
Two appendices, one on punctuation and one on the typological characteristics of Late-Egyptian, at the end of the book.
An index has been promised, but has not yet appeared. The brief table of contents is hardly helpful for a reader attempting to find a particular construction.