Relative verb forms: who did what to whom?
Your goal: distinguish the subject of a relative verb form from its antecedent.
Traditional grammars describe relative verb forms as another way to qualify a noun. In a pattern meaning “the sister whom he heard”, the sister is the antecedent but “he” performs the hearing.
A worked teaching phrase
sn.t sḏm.t.n.f
“The sister whom he heard.” The feminine .t in the relative form agrees with sn.t. The .n belongs to the perfect relative form; .f supplies its subject. The sister is understood as the object of hearing.
Bracket it as [sn.t] [sḏm.t.n.f]. Do not translate it “the sister heard him”: that reverses the roles.
Compare the constructions
sn.t ntt m pr uses a relative adjective and a location predicate. sn.t sḏm.t.n.f uses a relative verb form. Both describe the sister, but their internal grammar differs.
Relative forms can also occur without an expressed antecedent. Leave those readings for a fuller grammar until you can confidently identify the antecedent, subject and object in simpler examples. Different grammatical descriptions classify some forms differently.
Put it into practice
In sn.t sḏm.t.n.j, identify the antecedent, the person hearing and the person heard. Explain the separate jobs of .t and .j.
Reveal the model answer
“The sister whom I heard.” sn.t is the feminine antecedent and the person heard. .t marks agreement with that antecedent; .j marks the subject “I”. Agreement and subject marking point to different participants.
Study sources
Continue exploring with the dictionary or return to the hieroglyphic studio.