SECTION VI: PRONOUNS

VIa – Personal Pronouns

See IIIb for explanations of the “person” category labels here.

PERSON FORM MEANING
First‐Exclusive: pa I/we
First‐Inclusive: úma we all
Second‐Familiar: na you/thou
Second‐Polite: uton you
Third‐Neuter: is it/they (pronounced “EESH”)
Third‐Epicene: i he/she/they (“EE”)

These words function more or less exactly as regular nouns, except that they never form possessive phrases (Vd) or add any affixes other than to mark case.  Surprisingly, perhaps, they do occur with adjectives and numerals – toar pa is literally “happy I” (more idiomatically “lucky old me!”), and ikh·a is is “ten it” (i.e. “the ten of them”).

Don't forget to add appropriate case endings (IVc), distinguishing between pa “first‐exclusive, subject (= I)” and pa·da “first‐exclusive, object (= me)”, or between na “second‐familiar, subject (= thou)” and na·da “second‐familiar, object (= thee)”.  The third‐neuter is follows the usual case‐marking pattern for neuter nouns (i.e.: is/is/is·on), but all the rest of the pronouns are epicene gender (IVa).

Actually, though, these pronouns are relatively rare, especially in the subject forms, since pronoun‐suffixes on verbs and postpositions (see below) tend to make them redundant.  Giving the pronoun as well as the suffix makes the pronoun emphatic:

VIb – Demonstratives

These pronouns form a special class – although they are basically adjectival, they can also function on their own as if they were nouns (either neuter or epicene gender, as circumstances dictate – IVa), and take whatever case‐markings are appropriate to their role (IVc/Va).

None of them take pronoun‐suffixes themselves, but three of them can appear in suffixed form on other words.  In fact, “pointing at” people by means of the full adjectives is considered rude: don't say illu ji “this king”, use the suffixed form ji·ellu.

Demonstrative “nouns” never form possessive constructions (Vd – okuth ji always means “a different king”, never “someone else's king”), but they can themselves be accompanied by adjectives such as lo, “plural”.

DEM PRON AS ADJECTIVE AS NOUN
illu “this, these near me” “this one, these people”
che “that, those near you” “that one, those people”
uo “that, those over there” “yonder one, those people”
sumfa “every” “everyone, everything”
seach “any, whichever” “anything, no matter who”
emmeth “the same” “them again, the same thing”
okuth “a different” “someone else, another one”
me “no, not a” “nobody, nothing, none”
¿ fe ? “what…?, which…?” “who?, what?, which?”
e “some, any (nonzero)” “something, someone”

The pronoun e is also used to translate the correlative, “(the one) who, which”, in relative clauses (see IXc) – ¿ fe ? is only ever a question form.

VIc – Pronoun Suffixes

These are endings capable of attaching to nouns, postpositions, or verbs.  There is one corresponding to each personal pronoun listed above, and a further three corresponding to demonstratives.

First‐Exclusive: ·(a)p
On Noun: “my X, our X”
On Verb: “I X, we X”
On Postposition: “X me, X us”
First‐Inclusive: ·(o)m
On Noun: “our (shared) X”
On Verb: “we (all) X”
On Postposition: “X us”
Second‐Familiar: ·(a)n
On Noun: “your X, thy X”
On Verb: “you X, thou Xest”
On Postposition: “X you, X thee”
Second‐Polite: ·(o)ton
On Noun: “your X”
On Verb: “you X”
On Postposition: “X you”
Third‐Neuter: ·(e)s
On Noun: “its X, their X”
On Verb: “it Xes, they X”
On Postposition: “X it, X them”
Third‐Epicene: ·
On Noun: “his X, her X, their X”
On Verb: “he Xes, she Xes, they X”
On Postposition: “X him, X her, X them”
Near‐Demonstrative: ·(e)llu
On Noun: “this X, these Xes”
On Verb: (does not occur)
On Postposition: “X here”
Mid‐Demonstrative: ·(a)ch
On Noun: “that X, those Xes”
On Verb: (does not occur)
On Postposition: “X there”
Far‐Demonstrative: ·(a)uo
On Noun: “that X, those X (yonder)”
On Verb: (does not occur)
On Postposition: “X over there”
EXAMPLES
Noun: reisen “eye” → reisen·oton “your eye”.
Verb: sifulu “die” → sifulu·es “it/they died”.
Postposition: thun “beside” → thun·om “beside us”.

The bracketed vowels in each case are omitted if the suffix is being added after an e, a, or o – thus ji “king”, ji·an “thy king” but aracho “word”, aracho·n “thy word”.  Other endings can be attached on top of these suffixes, as in:

See also VIIIa for the special pronoun‐suffixes used in commands.

AMBIGUITIES
Since the Third‐Epicene suffix is zero, it can lead to further confusing possibilities:
aracho, “word”, can mean “his/her/their word(s)”.
sifulu, “die”, can mean “he/she/they died” (with no explicit subject); a one‐word sentence.
thun, “beside”, can mean “beside him/her/them” (with no separate oblique‐case noun needed)

If ever there's a serious risk of confusion in the pronoun system, the simplest solution is to revert to using specific nouns – don't say “her words”, say “the woman's words”.

VId – Adverbials

There are also reduced forms of the demonstrative pronouns, similar to the personal suffixes, which combine with a range of nouns to produce adverbial constructions.  The commonest bases for these compounds are nu “place”, uko “time, occasion”, and dar “reason”:

nullu here
nuch there
nouo over there (irregular)
nusomma everywhere
nuseach anywhere
nommeth in the same place (irregular)
nukuth elsewhere (irregular)
nume nowhere
¿ nuf ? where?
nui somewhere, where (pronounced “NWEE”!)
ukollu now
ukoch then
ukouo back then
ukosomma always
ukoseach whenever
ukemmeth simultaneously (irregular)
ukuth another time (irregular)
ukome never
¿ ukof ? when?
ukoi someday, when
darellu for this reason
darach therefore
darauo for that reason
darasomma for every reason – used as “of course”
daraseach no matter why
daremmeth for the same reason
darokuth for some other reason
darame for no reason
¿ daraf ? why?
darei for some reason, why

Note the absence of · marks: nullu (pronounced “nool‐LOO”) “here” is a single adverb, whereas nu·ellu (“NOO‐el‐loo”) “this place” is a noun with a suffix.