Pronouns

Pronoun

Pronouns are words used to replace a noun or to refer to it without repeating it explicitly, for example referring to a person, an object or a concept already mentioned or known from the context. Syntactically, pronouns can fill various roles in the sentence, such as subject, object or complement.

Everyday examples:

• English: I, you, he, they, this, that

Pronouns save repetition and allow short, clear sentences.

Why are Egyptian pronouns complicated?

English has one main series of personal pronouns.

Middle Egyptian has several different series, and each one is used:

• in a different syntactic role

• and in a different position in the sentence

Middle Egyptian has three main kinds of pronouns: personal, demonstrative and interrogative.

The difference from English:

English already varies its pronouns by function: he, him, his. The Egyptian suffix pronoun covers the possessive and object-of-preposition uses: pr=f is “his house”, and n=f is “to him”. The difference is that Egyptian attaches it to the preceding word; what English has no equivalent for is the dependent pronoun.

Chapter map:

• Suffix pronoun: possession after a noun, subject of a conjugated verb, object of a preposition

• Dependent pronoun: object of a conjugated verb, subject of an adjectival sentence

• Independent pronoun: subject of a nominal sentence, and emphasis

• Followed by: resumptive pronoun, demonstrative pronoun (pn, tn, pꜣ), and prepositions with pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns denote the participants in the discourse: the speaker, the addressee, or someone not directly taking part in it; hence they refer to first, second or third person. Grammatically they are usually also marked for gender and number. That is why “he” cannot be translated one-to-one. First ask: which kind of “he”?

Middle Egyptian has three series of personal pronouns. The choice among them is determined by the role of the pronoun in the sentence:

The same English “he”: three series in Egyptian:

In English one word (with its forms him, his) fills all these roles; in Egyptian each role gets its own form.

Suffix Pronoun

A suffix pronoun is a personal pronoun attached to the preceding word: a noun, a verb, a preposition or a particle. It never stands alone. In transliteration it is marked with the sign = (pr=f).

Everyday examples:

• English: my house, his book

In Middle Egyptian:

This is the most common pronoun in Egyptian.

It is used for:

• Possession, after a noun (pr=f “his house”)

• Subject of a conjugated verb (sḏm=f “he hears”)

• Object of a preposition (n=f “to him”, jm=f “in it”)

• After certain particles (jw=f)

Examples (suffix pronoun in red):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English	Notes
	pr=f	“His house”	Attached to a noun
	sḏm=s	“She hears”	Attached to a verb
	jw=f	“He”	Attached to a proclitic particle

• =f → third person singular masculine

• =s → third person singular feminine

Table of suffix pronouns:

Transliteration	Hieroglyphs	English	Person	Number	Gender
=j	, ,	My, Me	First	Singular	Common
=k		Your	Second	Singular	Masculine
=ṯ / =t	,	Your	Second	Singular	Feminine
=f		His/Him/Its	Third	Singular	Masculine
=s	,	Her/Hers/Its	Third	Singular	Feminine
=n		Our, Us	First	Plural	Common
=ṯn / =tn	,	Your (pl.)	Second	Plural	Common
=sn		Their/Them	Third	Plural	Common
=tw		One	Impersonal	Singular	Common

When a king speaks in the first person, is used instead of , and when a god speaks, .

When the speaker is a woman, the woman determinative () appears. Sometimes, when the last determinative of the word is the man () and it is followed by =j, the sign is written only once.

Dependent Pronoun

A dependent pronoun is a personal pronoun that stands as a separate word but cannot open a sentence: it always leans on a preceding word.

Everyday examples:

• English: saw him, sent her

In Middle Egyptian:

The dependent pronoun is used mainly as:

• Direct object of a conjugated verb (hꜣb.n=f sw “he sent him”)

• Subject of an adjectival sentence (nfr sw “he is good”)

• After certain particles (mk sw “here he is”)

Example (dependent pronoun in red, suffix pronoun in black):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	jw hꜣb.n=f sw	“He sent him” or “He sent it”

• sw → “him” or “it”

Note: one does not say hꜣb.n=f=f. A suffix pronoun after an inflected verb is always the subject — the object comes as a dependent pronoun.

Table of dependent pronouns:

Transliteration	Hieroglyphs	English	Person	Number	Gender
wj		I, Me	First	Singular	Common
ṯw / tw	,	You	Second	Singular	Masculine
ṯn / tn	,	You	Second	Singular	Feminine
sw		He/Him/It	Third	Singular	Masculine
sjj / st	, ,	She/Her/It	Third	Singular	Feminine
n		We, Us	First	Plural	Common
ṯn / tn	,	You (pl.)	Second	Plural	Common
sn	,	They/Them/It	Third	Plural	Common

Illustration of line 7 of the stela of Horemkhauef, Dynasty 13, Hierakonpolis

rḏ.n=f wj m ḥr.jj jmw … — “He appointed me as commander of the ship ...” (dependent pronoun as the object of sḏm.n=f)

Independent Pronoun

An independent pronoun is a personal pronoun that stands on its own as a separate word in the sentence and indicates the person referred to fully and clearly, without attaching to another word. An independent pronoun can:

• stand alone

• open a sentence

• serve as an emphasized subject

Everyday examples:

• For example: I am a student

In Middle Egyptian:

The independent pronoun appears mainly in:

• nominal sentences

• sentences of identification

• emphasis on identity

Examples (independent pronoun in red):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	jnk sš	“I [am a] scribe”*
	ntf nṯr	“He [is a] god”

• jnk → “I” (1^st person singular)

• ntf → “He”, “It” (3^rd person masc. singular)

* - Not “I write” (subject + verb), but “I am a scribe” (nominal sentence: subject + nominal predicate).

Table of independent pronouns:

Transliteration	Hieroglyphs	English	Person	Number	Gender
jnk		I [am]	First	Singular	Common
ntk		You [are]	Second	Singular	Masculine
ntṯ		You [are]	Second	Singular	Feminine
ntf		He/It [is]	Third	Singular	Masculine
nts		She/It [is]	Third	Singular	Feminine
jnn		We [are]	First	Plural	Common
ntṯn		You [are]	Second	Plural	Common
ntsn		They [are]	Third	Plural	Common

Illustration of line 10 of the stela of Horemkhauef, Dynasty 13, Hierakonpolis

jnk sꜥḥ jq(r) tp tꜣ … — “I am an excellent noble upon earth ...” (independent pronoun as the subject of a nominal sentence)

Resumptive Pronoun

A resumptive pronoun is a personal pronoun that refers back to a noun already mentioned earlier in the same sentence, and “holds” its place within the syntactic structure.

Everyday examples:

• Compare English: the man I gave the book to / the house I lived in

In Middle Egyptian:

In Middle Egyptian the resumptive pronoun appears in two main constructions:

• Topic — an element moved to the head of the sentence, with a pronoun standing in its usual place (see the chapter “Basic Concepts in Grammar”).

• Relative clause — when the noun described is not the subject of the clause (see the chapter “Relativity”).

Example:

	Hieroglyphs
jw r n(.jj) s nḥm=f sw	Transliteration
“A man’s speech saves him”	English
“[A] man[’s] speech saves him”	English

Here =f refers back to r n(.jj) s “a man’s speech”, and sw refers back to s “man”.

More examples:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	s nt.jj ḥm.t=f m pr	“[the] man whose wife is in the house”
	bw nt.jj nṯr.w jm	“[the] place where [the] gods are”

In the first, the resumptive element is a suffix pronoun: =f refers back to s “[the] man”. In the second there is no pronoun but a resumptive adverb — jm “there, in it” — which holds the place of bw (see the chapter “Relativity”).

Demonstrative Pronoun

A demonstrative pronoun is a word used to point to a particular thing directly and immediately without naming it. Middle Egyptian has two different types of demonstratives, and the difference between them lies not only in position but chiefly in their linguistic function.

Demonstratives with strong deictic force, which actually point to a particular entity in space or in context (“this one here”, “that one there”), come after the noun. Forms such as pn, tn, pf, tf belong to this group, and they function as an emphatic addition to the noun. In these cases the structure is: noun + demonstrative pronoun.

By contrast, with forms such as pꜣ, tꜣ, nꜣ , the function is no longer direct pointing but marking definiteness or identification — that is, indicating an entity that is known, given or distinct in the context. These forms tend to come before the noun.

masc.			fem.			plural			English
	pn	this (m.)		tn	this (f.)		nn n	these	This, These
	pf	that (m.)		tf	that (f.)		nf n	those	That, Those
	pꜣ	this (m.)		tꜣ	this (f.)		nꜣ n	these	The, This

The pronouns pn, tn, pf, tf come after the noun and agree with it in gender. The plural forms nn, nf, nꜣ come before the noun and are linked to it by n: nf n ḫꜣs.wt “those foreign lands”.

Another series, pw / tw / nw “this”, is used chiefly in the nominal sentence (A pw).

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	pw	“This”
	tw	“This” (fem.)
	nw	“These”

When there is also an adjective, the demonstrative pronoun comes before the adjective: noun + demonstrative pronoun + adjective.

Examples (subject in red, verb in blue, adjective in orange, demonstrative pronoun in purple):

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	ḥm.t tn nfr.t	“This good woman”
	nṯr pf mnḫ	“That splendid god”
	nf n(.jj) ḫꜣs.wt	“Those foreign lands”

A demonstrative pronoun can also serve as an object in the sentence:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	English
	ḏd Ptḥ nn	“Ptah will say these”

Chapter New Vocabulary

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Type	English
	jm	Adverb	There, therein
	jmw	Noun	Ship
	jqr	Adjective	Excellent, skillful
	bw	Noun	Place
	mnḫ	Adjective	Splendid, excellent
	mrj	Verb	To love, want
	nḥm	Verb	To save, rescue
	nt.jj	Relative adjective	who, which
	ḥr.jj	Nisba (adjective)	Upper, who is upon
	ḫꜣs.t	Noun	Foreign land, hill country
	sꜥḥ	Noun	Dignitary
	snḏ	Verb / noun	To fear; fear
	tp	Preposition	upon
	ḏd	Verb	To say, speak