Abstract
First, it is argued that, in the Second Scheme of the Emphatic Construction, the use of the Uninflected
Relative Forms (traditionally “Nominal Verb Forms”) as initial circumstantial clauses is similar to the
use of adverbial participles and adverbial relative clauses in other languages. Accordingly, the
construction is identified as a detached adjectival verb form construction (here “Detached Relative
Form Construction”, DRF-Cx), in which the Uninflected Relative Verb Form serves as a “converb”,
i.e., a less inflected, adjectival verb form that is used adverbially. In a second line of thought, it is
hypothesized that the Emphatic Construction proper (“First Scheme”) was born from a Verbal Balanced
Sentence Construction with two identical Uninflected Relative Forms plus an additional adverbial
phrase, in which the second ‘twin’ Uninflected Relative Forms was omitted due to its semantic
redundancy. In contrast to earlier accounts, this scenario explains simultaneously a) the construction’s
semantic layout, i.e., the sequence ground––focused foreground and the effectively absolute tense
interpretation of the Uninflected Relative Form; b) its morphosyntactic layout, i.e., Uninflected
Relative Form––adverbial phrase); and c) its paradigmatic fingerprint which is similar to that of
Nominal Sentences. Altogether, this analysis takes notably 1) the Adverbial Sentence Construction, 2)
the Detached Relative Form Construction (“Second Scheme of the Emphatic Construction”), and 3) the
Emphatic Construction proper, alias “Circumstance Focusing Construction” (CF-Cx) as three different,
unrelated constructions, –– the latter, i.e. the CF-Cx, however, being related to the Verbal Balanced
Sentence, i.e., a Nominal Sentence.
Keywords: Emphatic Construction, Balanced Sentence, Detached Participle Construction, Absolute
Participle Construction, Adverbial Participle Construction, Relative clause, Converb, Pragmatic focus,
Adverbial Sentence, Great Hymn to the Aten 12.