Notes
In a sense, the sḏm.f verb form is the most basic conjugated verb: it’s the stem followed by the subject. However, Allen covers it after the sḏm.n.f, stative, and pseudo-verbal constructions, presumably because while its form is simple, its usage is … let’s call it “complicated.”
Hans Jakob Polotsky’s “Standard Theory” of Egyptian verbs classifies the sḏm.f into as many as six different forms. Since the written sḏm.f form has multiple syntactic uses, each use may have had a different pronunciation in spoken Egyptian: to make up a few examples, *siḏmaf, *saḏmaf, *saḏumaf, and so forth. These forms all have one thing in common: since vowels are omitted, they all have the written form sḏm.f.
James P. Allen, following Polotsky, presents this theory in the first two editions of his Middle Egyptian. But in the third edition, he now argues that there is no solid evidence for there being multiple sḏm.f forms. In other languages, the same form can have multiple uses, so why should we assume multiple uses requires multiple forms in Egyptian?
Because the sḏm.f is so complicated, we’ve split its grammar across several pages. But we are “agnostic” about whether the various uses represent one underlying form or several. We just know they’re all built upon something that is written like sḏm.f.
Gnomic tense
One use of the sḏm.f is as a “gnomic” tense, which is a statement that is habitual, typical, or general, rather than a specific occurrence. In English, compare the sentences “I am walking to the store right now” and “I walk to the store”. The first is a specific occurrence; the second is usually interpreted a generalization, more explicitly phrased as “when I go to the store, I walk.”
𓌻𓂋𓀁𓇓𓅱𓊖𓏏𓏤𓆑𓂋𓎛𓂝𓄹𓏪 mr sw njwt.f r ḥꜥw
“His town loves him more than itself.”
(lit. “His town loves him more than the body”; more lit. “His town loves him with respect to the body.”)
The sḏm.f does not inherently have a tense (that is, a time); such a usage could be in the past, i.e. “His town used to love him more than itself.” The example as given above is from “The Story of Sinuhe”, but a past “used to” interpretation would make sense in a tomb biography.
Note that in Middle Egyptian, the normal way to describe a specific action that is currently happening is not the sḏm.f but the pseudo-verbal construction: njwt.f ḥr mrt sw “his town loves him (now)”, lit. “his town is upon loving him.” Again, this actually parallels English usage: gnomic present “I walk to school” vs. present progressive “I am walking to school.”
Future tense
The sdm.f most often expresses a future or subjunctive action. This is particularly true when it’s at the beginning of the sentence, with no particles to qualify it.
𓅠𓅓𓀀𓉐𓏤𓎡 gm.j pr.k
“I (will) find your house”
In this example, it’s probably not gnomic; finding your house is probably not something that one has to do frequently or habitually! Therefore it makes more sense to interpret as future. (If the sentence were “I go to your house”, that would be a bit more ambiguous; maybe I visit you often enough to say that gnomically.)
You may recall that the pseudo-verbal construction, when using the preposition r, has a future meaning as well: jw.j r gm pr.k “I will find your house”. The difference between the pseudo-verbal r form and the sḏm.f future is that the pseudo-verbal describes something that is inevitable or obligatory, while the sḏm.f describes a future which the subject actually chooses. Allen (2014 p. 271) provides a beautiful example of this contrast from “The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor”, when the serpent is giving the sailor the good news:
jw dpt r jjt m ẖnw sqdw jm.s rḫ.n.k
šm.k ḥnꜥ.sn r ẖnw
The first line says “A boat will come from home, with sailors in it that you know”. This is the serpent giving a prophecy: it’s inevitable. (Allen also argues that it’s involuntary because a boat cannot choose its own actions.) Since it’s inevitable, the first line uses the pseudo-verbal r form: jw dpt r jjt.
But the second line says “You will go, with them, to home.” This is future but it’s in the sḏm.f form, and that’s because while the serpent does think it will happen, it is a voluntary action; the sailor (“you”) will have that choice. The sailor could surprise the serpent and say “Nah, I think I’ll stay.” (He doesn’t, of course, but it was his choice.)
below here it’s copied from the sḏm.n.f page and needs editing
The sḏm.n.f is one of the suffix conjugations, so it has a fairly simple form, and it’s right there in the name: the verb stem plus the suffix -n plus the suffix pronouns (if the subject is a pronoun). The stem used, with a few exceptions, is the base stem.
𓉐𓂋𓂻𓈖𓋴𓈖𓏥 pr.n.sn
“They have emerged”
𓆑𓄿𓀋𓂡𓈖𓀀 fꜣ.n.j
“I have carried”
Spelling
The n is written after the verb’s determinative (if any), but sometimes before, especially if the verb stem ends in -n already: ḏn.n.f “he has threshed grain” could be spelled 𓆓𓈖𓀜𓈖𓆑 or 𓆓𓈖𓈖𓀜𓆑.
𓏎𓈖 jnj “bring, get, fetch” has no determinative but in the sḏm.n.f form, it is usually written with two n signs: 𓏎𓈖𓈖𓀀 jn.n.j “I have brought”, but sometimes only one is written. If jnj has a 1st person singular pronoun that is omitted in writing and goes straight into the dative (like “I have brought for her”), only two n signs are written in all: only one for the verb and its sḏm.n.f suffix, and one for the dative preposition n: 𓏎𓈖𓈖𓊃 jn.n.s “I have brought for her”. Allen 2014 says (p. 247) that three n ripples together usually are reserved for the word 𓈗 mw “water”.
With the stative
As said above, the sḏm.n.f describes completed action. Compare this with the stative, which describes the state that results from an action, rather the action itself, so these often act as complements to each other in a narration. Intransitive verbs use the stative, and transitive verbs use the sḏm.n.f.
𓏃𓈖𓏏𓏭𓊛𓎡𓅱𓊪𓎛𓄖𓂻𓈖𓀀𓍋𓃀𓃰𓅱𓎶𓈉 ḫnt.kw pḥ.n.j ꜣbw
“I have sailed upstream and reached Elephantine”
Note how “sail upstream”, which is intransitive, is in the stative, while “reach”, which has a direct object (Elephantine) and thus is transitive, is in the sḏm.n.f.
This rule is not hard and fast, but it is the usual preference: for the perfective aspect (completed action), transitive gets sḏm.n.f, intransitive gets stative.
With adjective verbs
Adjective verbs are always intransitive. A flamingo “is red”; the heart of a happy man “is good”. In the sḏm.n.f, an adjective verb means the subject has “become” the thing or “gained” the quality described, not that it has previously had it. 𓊵𓏏𓊪𓈖𓆑 ḥtp.n.f means “he has become contented”, not “he has been contented”.
Counterfactuals
In a few cases, the sḏm.n.f is preceded by a particle like ḥꜣ “if only” to express something that did not happen in the past. English does a similar thing with its past perfect tense, as you can see in the translation:
𓇉𓄿𓀁𓊪𓎛𓄖𓂻𓈖𓀀𓍋𓃀𓃰𓅱𓎶𓈉 ḥꜣ pḥ.n.j ꜣbw
“If only I had reached Elephantine”
(lit. “if only I completed reaching Elephantine”)
sḏm.n.f as past tense
Despite it not being inherently a past tense, the sḏm.n.f can act as one. Usually, when it’s being marked as past, it’s introduced by a particle. Sometimes this is jw, but more often it is 𓊢𓂝𓈖 ꜥḥꜥ.n, which was used for narratives with the pseudo-verbal construction too.
𓇋𓅱𓊪𓎛𓄖𓂻𓈖𓀀𓍋𓃀𓃰𓅱𓎶𓈉 jw pḥ.n.j ꜣbw
“I reached Elephantine” (as opposed to the usual “I have reached Elephantine”)
𓊢𓂝𓈖𓊪𓎛𓄖𓂻𓈖𓀀𓍋𓃀𓃰𓅱𓎶𓈉 ꜥḥꜥ.n pḥ.n.j ꜣbw
“Then I reached Elephantine”
The other narrative word seen with the pseudo-verbal construction, 𓃹𓈖𓇋𓈖 wn.jn, can be used in this role with the sḏm.n.f but it’s rare.
rḫ “know”
The stative of rḫ “experience, learn” was used to show that one was in the state of having learned something: in other words, one knows it. This is done with the sḏm.n.f of that verb as well:
𓂋𓐍𓏜𓈖𓀀𓂋𓈖𓏪𓍿𓈖 rḫ.n.j rnw.ṯn
“I have learned your names”
Both the stative and sḏm.n.f then boil down to knowing the information because of having learned it. The distinction is probably that the stative emphasizes the state of knowing, while the sḏm.n.f emphasizes the process of learning it.
Negation
The sḏm.n.f can be negated with 𓂜 nj. Since it means an action has not been completed, it usually is a present tense, describing the fact that the action is not complete. It can also mean that the thing cannot be done.
𓂜𓄔𓅓𓈖𓎡 nj sḏm.n.k
“you can’t hear” or “you don’t hear”
(lit. “you have not heard”)
The sḏm.n.f can also be negated with 𓂜𓈖 nn, but this is uncommon. It seems to describe something that cannot happen in the future:
𓂜𓈖𓄔𓅓𓈖𓎡 nn sḏm.n.k
“you won’t be able to hear”
Questions
Broadly, a verbal predicate can be questioned in two ways. One way is to ask if the verb happened; the other is to ask about some other details, such as who did the verb, or to whom was it done, or when, etc. These can be distinguished (per Allen 2014, p. 259) as predicate versus adjunct questions. The verb itself is the predicate; the adjuncts are other parts of the sentence that add to the meaning.
For a predicate question, the sḏm.n.f is preceded by jn jw (or sometimes just jn):
𓇋𓈖𓇋𓅱𓄔𓅓𓈖𓎡 jn jw sḏm.n.k
“Have you heard?”
The negated version can also be used in a predicate question, with jn before the negative particle (which seems to fill in for jw in this case).
𓇋𓈖𓂜𓄔𓅓𓈖𓎡 jn nj sḏm.n.k
“Haven’t you heard?”
But in an adjunct question, the sḏm.n.f heads the sentence by itself, with the appropriate interrogative word included in the appropriate place.
𓇍𓈖𓍿𓈖𓏥𓍿𓈖𓌙𓅯𓈐 j.n.ṯn ṯnj
“Where have you come from?” (lit. “You have come where?”)