Hieroglyphs tutorial; Verbs, part two

As before, (refer to Verbs, part one) the endings of verbs are always;

• "y" for the singular personal verbs ("I")
• "k" for second person singular male verbs (you)
• "T" (tj) for second person singular male verbs (you)
• "f" for third person singular masculine verbs (he)
• "s" for third person singular verbs
• "n" for first person plural verbs (we)
• "Tn" (tjn) for second person plural verbs
• "sn" for third person plural verbs

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Past Tense

The past tense is often known as the "sDm.n(=f)" (or "sedjemenef") tense as this is the form used to write the first person singular (ie "he") of the standard strong verb ("sDm" - "to hear"). The "n" is separated from the verb stem by a dot to show that it is the verbal ending and not part of the stem.

The stem of strong, weak and extra weak verbs remains unchanged, but the last consonant of doubling verbs is sometimes omitted (as in the standard form below).

Strong verbs	sDm.n=(f) he heard
Doubled verbs	mA.n=(f) he saw
Weak verbs	mr.n=(f) he loved
Extra weak verbs	rdi.n=(f) he gave, he placed

The "sDm.n=f" form is often preceded by an auxilliary word such as "iw". This term is not translated as there is no equivalent in English. The term is most often found in recorded speech as it implies an involvement in the events being described.

	iw auxiliary term
	iw Hbs.n=i HAy I clothed the naked

Past Relative Tense

The past relative tense decribes an action as "that which a person did" ie it links it to the person who took the action. This is a fairly tricky concept as this particular construction is not found in English. For example, You could say "I built a pyramid" and use the past tense or say "The pyramid that I built" using the past relative tense. Because the tense already tells us that the action is linked to the person, the Egyptians did not need to insert a word to represent "that" ("what" or "which").

The past relative tense takes the form "sDmt.n(=f)", ie a t is added to the verb stem before the past tense ending ("n").

Strong verbs	sDmt.n=(f) that (which, what) he heard
Doubled verbs	mAt.n=(f) that (which, what) he saw
Weak verbs	mrt.n=(f) that (which, what) he loved
Extra weak verbs	rdit.n=(f) that (which, what) he gave, he placed

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