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"This," "that," "these," and "those" are called demonstrative pronouns. In English, we use them as follows:
In Egyptian, we use demonstratives in roughly the same ways. However, "this" and "that" are usually synonymous, and "these" and "those" are also synonymous.
Above, we see a table of demonstrative pronouns.
The masculine and feminine pronouns are normally used with a noun ("this man"). Some of these precede the noun: pa and ta. Some of these follow the noun: pn, tn, pw, and tw. And some can either follow or precede the noun: pf (pfa), and tf (tfa).
The neuter pronouns (nn, nf, nw, and na) are normally either used to replace a noun ("I hold this") or with a plural noun ("these gods" or "those gods"). When the pronoun is used with a plural noun, it is used in the following form (all four neuter demonstrative pronouns are used in the same way), the example of which literally means "this of gods":
In Egyptian, pw and tw are often used with a person's (or god's) name, as a sort of emphasis:
Note: In English, demonstrative pronouns do not really replace nouns; the noun is implied, even though it is sometimes impossible to determine just which noun is implied.
