This demonstrative is a pronoun, and so does not directly modify nouns. In Middle Egyptian it becomes used as a demonstrative for plural nouns in place of the old adjectives jpw and jptw and comes to serve as a plural definite article. When used in this way, it precedes the noun, with the genitival adjective n(j) in between, e.g. "these feet" is nw n(j) rdw (literally "this of feet").
In Old Egyptian it forms a contrastive pair with the demonstrative pronoun nf, in which nw is proximal.
1 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.
James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 54–55, 72, 381.
