In a subject relative, the antecedent is understood as the subject of the predicate after اللي: الراجل اللي وصل “the man who arrived.” Mainstream Cairene normally leaves that subject position empty. The predicate—not اللي—shows the relevant gender and number agreement.
English uses overt who/that as the relative subject. Egyptian اللي is a linker, while the missing subject is recovered from the head noun and agreement. Adding neutral هو، هي، هم usually duplicates the subject rather than translating English who.
Rule 1: put the predicate directly after اللي
The core shape is definite antecedent + اللي + predicate. The predicate may be a finite verb, participle, adjective, locative phrase, or other Egyptian predicate.
السواق اللي وصل بدري مستني تحت.
is-sawwāʾ illi wiṣil badri mistanni taḥt.
The driver who arrived early is waiting downstairs.
الممرضة اللي بتشتغل بالليل أخدت أجازة.
il-mumarriḍa lli bitishtaghal bil-lēl ʾakhadit ʾagāza.
The nurse who works nights took leave.
الجار اللي عنده كلب كبير ساكن فوقينا.
il-gār illi ʿandu kalb kibīr sākin fōʾēna.
The neighbor who has a big dog lives above us.
In the third example, عنده كلب is the relative predicate, literally “at him is a dog.” No extra subject pronoun follows اللي.
Rule 2: agreement appears on the predicate
Because اللي is invariant, agreement after it helps listeners recover the antecedent. Human singular and plural heads normally control matching agreement. Nonhuman plurals commonly take feminine singular agreement as a set.
الطالبة اللي قدمت العرض جاية من إسكندرية.
iṭ-ṭāliba lli ʾaddimit il-ʿarḍ gayya min Iskandariyya.
The student who gave the presentation is from Alexandria.
المهندسين اللي راجعوا الرسومات طلبوا تعديل.
il-muhandisīn illi rāgaʿu r-rusūmāt ṭalabu taʿdīl.
The engineers who reviewed the drawings requested a change.
الفواتير اللي وصلت ناقصة لازم تتراجع.
il-fawātīr illi wiṣlit nāʾṣa lāzim titrāgaʿ.
The invoices that arrived incomplete need to be reviewed.
The plural human head has plural راجعوا، طلبوا. The nonhuman plural الفواتير has feminine singular وصلت، ناقصة، تتراجع in this neutral set reading. Real usage can individuate nonhuman plurals and produce plural agreement, so this is a strong baseline rather than a ban on every alternative. See nonhuman plural agreement for the broader system.
Rule 3: the relative has its own time, aspect, and negation
The main clause and relative clause need not describe the same time. Choose a perfect, b-imperfect, participle, future, or كان construction for the relative according to its own discourse function.
المدير اللي كان مسافر رجع امبارح.
il-mudīr illi kān musāfir rigiʿ imbāriḥ.
The manager who had been away came back yesterday.
العميل اللي هيستلم الطلب بكرة كلمنا النهارده.
il-ʿamīl illi hayistalim iṭ-ṭalab bukra kallimna nnaharda.
The customer who will receive the order tomorrow called us today.
الناس اللي مابتدخنش قعدت جوه.
in-nās illi mabitdakhkhansh ʾaʿadit guwwa.
The people who don't smoke sat inside.
Negation stays around its verb inside the relative. اللي does not change the placement of ما...ش, مش, or مفيش.
Here الناس is a collective noun, so feminine singular مابتدخنش، قعدت is an ordinary Cairo construal of the group as a whole. Plural مابيدخنوش، قعدوا is also natural when the individual people are foregrounded. This collective alternation does not make اللي agree.
Rule 4: a pronoun after اللي must add real focus
Neutral subject relatives have a gap. An overt pronoun can appear when it is independently contrastive—often with بنفسه/بنفسها “personally”—or in the focus construction هو اللي “he is the one who.” These are not interchangeable with the neutral pattern.
أنا أقصد الموظفة اللي هي بنفسها اكتشفت الغلطة.
ʾana ʾaʾṣud il-muwaẓẓafa lli hiyya binafsaha ktashafit il-ghalṭa.
I mean the employee who personally discovered the mistake.
Here هي بنفسها means “she herself”; deleting it removes emphasis but preserves the relative. By contrast, neutral اللي هي اكتشفت with no focus context sounds like unnecessary copying from English.
Rule 5: definiteness controls the linker
A definite subject antecedent uses اللي. A bare indefinite antecedent normally takes the predicate directly, even though English uses who/that in both.
فيه دكتور بيكشف يوم الجمعة.
fīh duktōr biyikshif yōm il-gumʿa.
There's a doctor who sees patients on Friday.
الدكتور اللي بيكشف يوم الجمعة حجزه كامل.
id-duktōr illi biyikshif yōm il-gumʿa ḥagzu kāmil.
The doctor who sees patients on Friday is fully booked.
This near-minimal pair changes the discourse status of دكتور, not the grammatical role inside the relative.
Near, far, and noun-phrase boundaries
The relative follows its antecedent; a demonstrative can close the larger identifying phrase. Context supplies physical distance.
الراجل اللي واقف هنا ده مسؤول الأمن.
ir-rāgil illi wāʾif hina da masʾūl il-ʾamn.
This man standing here is the security supervisor.
الراجل اللي واقف هناك ده صاحب العمارة.
ir-rāgil illi wāʾif hunāk da ṣāḥib il-ʿimāra.
That man standing over there owns the building.
The same postnominal ده and invariant اللي serve both distances. Formal هذا الرجل الذي... has a different register and word order.
A pointing and identification dialogue
مين فيهم الفني اللي جه يصلح النت؟
mīn fīhum il-fanni lli gih yiṣallaḥ in-nitt?
Which of them is the technician who came to fix the internet?
هو اللي لابس جاكت رمادي.
huwwa lli lābis gākit ramādi.
He's the one wearing a gray jacket.
اللي واقف جنب الاستقبال؟
illi wāʾif gamb il-istiʾbāl?
The one standing beside reception?
The second turn is a focus/headless structure, هو اللي..., not a redundant subject pronoun inside an ordinary headed relative.
Register and variation
(mainstream Cairene, informal/neutral) use invariant اللي plus a subject gap. (formal/MSA) inflected relatives agree with their antecedents and belong to a fuller formal grammar. (regional/social) Alexandrian, Delta, Upper Egyptian, Bedouin, class, age, and community varieties differ in particle pronunciation, agreement preferences, and use of overt pronouns. (performance language) scripted speech may add pronouns for dramatic contrast or switch to MSA; label the effect instead of treating it as the basic pattern.
Common Mistakes
1. Duplicating the subject with a neutral pronoun.
❌ الموظف اللي هو وصل بدري فتح المكتب.
Incorrect as a neutral subject relative — هو needs contrastive meaning here.
✅ الموظف اللي وصل بدري فتح المكتب.
il-muwaẓẓaf illi wiṣil badri fataḥ il-maktab.
The employee who arrived early opened the office.
2. Keeping singular agreement with a human plural head.
❌ المهندسات اللي حضرت الاجتماع مشيت.
Incorrect in the intended human-plural reading — the predicates need plural agreement.
✅ المهندسات اللي حضروا الاجتماع مشيوا بدري.
il-muhandisāt illi ḥaḍaru l-igtimāʿ mishyu badri.
The female engineers who attended the meeting left early.
3. Preposing the demonstrative by formal or English order.
❌ ده الراجل اللي واقف هناك أخويا.
Wrong for attributive ‘that man’; initial ده instead means ‘this is the man.’
✅ الراجل اللي واقف هناك ده أخويا.
ir-rāgil illi wāʾif hunāk da ʾakhūya.
That man standing over there is my brother.
4. Dropping a prepositional suffix in a different gap type.
❌ دي المدرسة اللي أخويا بيدرس في.
Incorrect — this is not a subject gap; في needs a suffix resuming المدرسة.
✅ دي المدرسة اللي أخويا بيدرس فيها.
di l-madrasa lli ʾakhūya biyidrus fīha.
This is the school my brother studies at.
Key Takeaways
- A subject relative normally has اللي + predicate, with no resumptive subject pronoun.
- Agreement appears on the relative predicate; اللي remains invariant.
- The relative selects its own time, aspect, and negation independently of the main clause.
- Overt هو/هي/هم is licensed by contrast or focus, not by English who.
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Start learning Arabic →Related Topics
- اللي: The Core Relative MarkerB1 — Use invariant اللي after definite human and nonhuman antecedents, then mark the antecedent's role with a gap or resumptive clitic.
- Object Relatives and Resumptive CliticsB1 — Form Cairene object relatives by attaching a resumptive object clitic to the verb and matching it to the antecedent.
- Clauses after Indefinite NounsB1 — Describe new or nonspecific Egyptian antecedents with a zero relative marker while preserving agreement and resumptive clitics inside the clause.
- Word Order inside Relative ClausesB2 — Order Egyptian relative clauses around اللي, subject gaps, resumptive clitics, internal topics, and negation.
- Non-Human Plural AgreementB1 — Use feminine-singular agreement as the Cairo baseline for nonhuman plurals while recognizing discourse-conditioned plural agreement.