This demonstrative was originally a determiner but could later be used alone, like a pronoun. When used as a determiner it follows the noun it describes.
In Old Egyptian it forms a contrastive pair with the demonstrative jpf, in which jpw is proximal.
Its use in Middle Egyptian texts is an archaism.
In Old Egyptian this form is also used for the dual. Traditionally this is interpreted as a summary writing of a special dual form jpwj (attested as such only in archaizing Middle Egyptian texts). An alternative possible interpretation is that there simply was no distinction between the masculine dual and plural demonstrative determiners.
Unmarked for number and gender, but treated syntactically as masculine plurals when used with participles and relative forms, and as feminine singulars when referred to by resumptive pronouns.
“jpw (lemma ID 854318)”, “Jp.w (lemma ID 24360)”, “jp.w (lemma ID 24340)”, and “jp.w (lemma ID 24330)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 55.
Edel, Elmar (1955-1964) Altägyptische Grammatik, volume 1, Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, § 182 et seq., page 83 et seq.
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1929) The Plural and Dual in Old Egyptian, Bruxelles: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, § 59, pages 60–61
