Passive constructions and the agent
Your goal: identify who is affected and who acts in a passive construction.
In English, “the scribe hears the voice” and “the voice is heard by the scribe” describe comparable roles with different sentence structures. A passive subject is not necessarily the performer of the action.
Recognise tw
A useful Egyptian pattern is sḏm.tw.f, “he is heard”, with the precise time reference supplied by context. In this analysis, tw marks the passive and .f is its subject. Do not read .f as “the person who hears”.
An expressed agent can follow jn, conventionally translated “by” in this use. Distinguish it from the preposition n, “to/for”, and from a genitival n linking nouns.
Keep the limits visible
Egyptian also has passive forms without tw, and tw can function impersonally in other constructions. This lesson introduces a recognition pattern, not a rule that every tw must be passive or that every passive contains tw.
Put it into practice
For the teaching pattern sḏm.tw.f jn sn.j, identify the person heard and the hearer. Give a natural English rendering and state what the isolated pattern does not establish.
Reveal the model answer
“He is heard by my brother” is a suitable schematic rendering. .f identifies the person heard; sn.j is the agent introduced by jn. The pattern alone does not fix the discourse’s time frame or identify the referent of “he”. Those require context.
Study sources
Continue exploring with the dictionary or return to the hieroglyphic studio.