In the fourth lesson of this series, Alan Gardiner's example ꜥꜣw n sḫty pn was translated "the asses of this peasant", but the last word, pn, was left unexplained. It is a demonstrative: a word like English "this" and "that". The last lesson made adjectives with -y; this one turns to another kind of word that describes a noun and agrees with it, like the adjectives of the second lesson.
James Allen points out that English has two demonstratives, "this" and "that", while Middle Egyptian has four, each in three forms. They are built on a simple pattern. Gardiner shows that p marks the masculine singular, t the feminine singular and n the plural, and a second consonant is added to each: pn, tn, nn; pf, tf, nf; pw, tw, nw; and pꜣ, tꜣ, nꜣ.
Each set has its own flavour. pn, tn and nn are the commonest, and Gardiner calls them "this", meaning near me, in time or place, though Allen notes they can also be translated "that" when the context calls for it. pf and its partners mean "that yonder", set against "this here", and Gardiner adds that they can carry feeling, whether disgust, as in ḫr pf, "that (vile) enemy", or admiration, as in ḥnw pf špsy, "that noble Residence (of long ago)". pw and tw are older forms, kept for high-flown and religious writing. pꜣ, tꜣ and nꜣ are the newest and, in Gardiner's word, the weakest.
Where they stand matters. Gardiner says the singular forms follow their noun, the same order as the adjectives in the second lesson:
The exception is pꜣ and tꜣ, which always come first, just as "this" does in English:
pf sits between the two. Gardiner says it may exceptionally come first, as in pf gs, "that side", and Allen simply says it can follow or precede.
The plurals behave differently. nn comes before its noun and is joined to it by n, the same "of" word that made the indirect genitive in the fourth lesson. Both grammars explain why: the n forms are really singular, so nn n srw is literally "this of officials". Allen adds that the same form serves for masculine and feminine plurals. Sometimes the noun is even left singular, as in nn n sḫty, "these peasants", literally "this of peasant".
Used on their own, nn and nꜣ mean "this" or "that", as in ḏd·n·f nn, "he said this".
Now back to the peasant. Allen notes that with an indirect genitive the demonstrative follows the first noun, as in irt tn nt Ḥr, "this Eye of Horus". In ꜥꜣw n sḫty pn it follows the second, and it is masculine singular, so it can only belong to sḫty: "this peasant", not "these asses", which would need nn n in front. A demonstrative can also follow a suffix pronoun. Gardiner quotes another line from the same tale, the Eloquent Peasant: ḏd·in sḫty pn n ḥmt·f tn, "then said this peasant to this his wife", and remarks that Egyptian uses "this" rather more than we would.
The weak pꜣ series had a future. Both grammars note that it sometimes means no more than "the", as in pꜣ mḫr, "the storehouse", and by Late Egyptian it had become the definite article. Allen points out that English "the" and the articles of German, French, Spanish and Italian grew out of demonstratives in just the same way.
One demonstrative has a second career. Gardiner notes that pw is very widely used for "he", "she", "it" or "they", as in Rꜥ pw, "he is Rēꜥ". There is no verb in that sentence at all, and sentences like it are the subject of the next lesson.