ery fully in Coptic. It is generally of masculine form, but
feminine in III. inf. (as in Semitic), and in causatives of
biliterals.

There are relative forms of _sdm-f_ and _sdm-n-f_, respectively
_sdm.w-f_ (masc.), _sdm.t-n-f_ (fem.), &c. They are used when the
relative is the object of the relative sentence, or has any other
position than the subject. Thus _sdm.t-f_ may mean "she whom he
hears," "she who[se praises] he hears," "she [to] whom he hears
[someone speaking]," &c. There are close analogies between the
function of the relative particles in Egyptian and Semitic; and the
Berber languages possess a relative form of the verb.

_Participles_.--These are active and passive, perfect and imperfect,
in the old language, but all are replaced by periphrases in Coptic.

_Verbal Adjectives_.--There is a peculiar formation, _sdm.ty-fy_, "he
who shall hear," probably meaning originally "he is a hearer,"
_sdm.ty_ being an adjective in _y_ formed from a feminine (_t_) form
of the infinitive, which is occasionally found even in triliteral
verbs; the endings are: sing., masc. _ty-fy_, fem. _ty-sy_; pl., masc.
_ty-sn_, fem. _ty-st_. It is found only in Old Egyptian.

_Particles_.--There seems to be no special formation for adverbs, and
little use is made of adverbial expressions. Prepositions, simple and
compound, are numerous. Some of the commonest simple prepositions are
_n_ "for," _r_ "to," _m_ "in, from," _hr_ "upon." A few enclitic
conjunctions exist, but they are indefinite in meaning--_swt_ a vague
"but," _grt_ a vague "moreover," &c.

Coptic presents a remarkable contrast to Egyptian in the precision of
its periphrastic conjugation. There are two present tenses, an
imperfect, two perfects, a pluperfect, a present and a past
frequentative, and three futures besides future perfect; there are
also conjunctive and optative forms. The negatives of some of these
are expressed by special prefixes. The gradual growth of these new
forms can be traced through all the stages of Egyptian. Throughout the
history of the language we note an increasing tendency to periphrasis;
but there was no great advance towards _precision_ before demotic. In
demotic there are distinguishable a present tense, imperfect, perfect,
frequentative, future, future perfect, conjunctive and optative; also
present, past and future negatives, &c. The passive was extinct before
demo