In Adjectives you learned that an adjective follows its noun and agrees with it: z nfr "a good man". A verb can do the same job. The form that lets it is the participle.
Key idea
An active participle means "one who does": sḏm "one who hears", ḏd mꜣꜥt "one who speaks the truth", z sḏm ḫrw "the man who hears the voice". It follows its noun and agrees with it like an adjective, and it can take an object.
Why it works
A participle is half verb and half adjective. As a verb it can have an object and adverbs: sḏm ḫrw m pr "who hears the voice in the house". As an adjective it describes a noun and takes the noun's gender and number. What it does not have is a subject of its own: the noun it describes is the one doing the action. That is the difference from a sḏm=f, which always names its subject after the verb.
| Verb | Participle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sḏm "hear" | sḏm | one who hears |
| ḏd "say" | ḏd | one who says |
| rḫ "know" | rḫ | one who knows |
| mrj "love" | mrr | one who loves (repeatedly, as a habit) |
| jrj "do" | jrr | one who does |
| sꜥnḫ "make live" | sꜥnḫ | one who gives life |
Third-weak and doubled verbs have two kinds of participle. The imperfective doubles a consonant (mrr, jrr, mꜣꜣ) and suits repeated or lasting action: "one who loves". The perfective does not (mr, jr, mꜣ) and suits a single act: "one who loved". Strong verbs usually look the same in both, so let the sense guide you.
Worked example: Translate
Translate nṯr sꜥnḫ rmṯ.
- nṯr "the god"; sꜥnḫ follows it with no subject of its own: a participle.
- rmṯ "the people" is the participle's object.
Answer: "The god who gives life to the people."
Worked example: An epithet
Translate mrr mꜣꜥt.
- mrr is the imperfective active participle of mrj "love".
- mꜣꜥt "what is right" is its object.
Answer: "One who loves what is right."
Common mistake
Reading a participle as a finite verb with a missing subject. Students turn z sḏm ḫrw into "the man hears the voice". That would be sḏm z ḫrw, verb first. Here the verb comes after the noun, describing it: "the man who hears". Check the order: a verb that follows a noun and has no subject of its own is a participle.
Participles are everywhere in titles and epithets, the phrases that describe officials and kings: "one who does what his lord praises", "who speaks and it happens". Learning to spot them makes those long strings of praise readable.