PERSONAL PRONOUNS

First- and second-person pronouns are a little tricky, since they don’t indicate number. Plurality in pronouns is indicated by the noun suffix.

First-person = zais

Second-person = chĕs

Third-person pronouns are not differentiated by sex, but by spatial relation to the speaker. More on relational indefinite pronouns below.

tŏlīs = “this person (near me)”

tŏlīn = “that person (over there)”

I: Class 1, singular, subject

you: Class 1, singular, direct object

We: Class 1, plural, subject

you (all): Class 1, plural, direct object

It is not grammatically correct to use pronouns without a suffix, which means they can’t be used in plain case as the target of a copula. It is, however, sometimes heard in casual speech, in which case the singular takes no suffix, and the plural takes the subject suffix.

Incorrect:

Correct:

One-word answers to questions take the appropriate inflection even if the rest of the sentence is left implicit.

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

The only specialized possessive pronouns are for first- and second-person singular. They are a contraction of zais/ches plus the Class 1-singular-possessive suffix -nī. Everything else takes the standard suffixes.

my = zain

your = chĕm

Medis: Class 1, singular, subject

lover: plain case

friend: plain case

There is no specific pronoun for “our,” “their,” etc. “Our” it is simply zais-nīs, the first-person pronoun zais combined with the plural-possessive suffix -nīs. Likewise, chĕs-nīs is “y’all’s”, tŏlīs-nī is “his/her”, and tŏlīs-nīs is “their.” However, in many dialects “ tŏlīnī” is has become a casual way to indicate third-party ownership, either singular or plural, so it’s “his/hers/its/theirs” all in one.

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS: SOME-/ANY-/NO-

Pronoun tables: adjectives, nouns, adverbs

Even though places are categorized as Class 3 nouns, the pronoun for somewhere/anywhere/etc operates like an adverb.

INDEFINITE/INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS

QUESTIONS

Since all the pronouns within a class resemble each other, questions using the copula (be-equals) handle it with less redundancy than in English.

Correct:

Incorrect:

Longer question sentences simply substitute the proper interrogative pronoun for the unknown quantity, marked with case suffixes like any other noun.

For yes/no questions, the declarative form of the sentence is usually differentiated from the interrogative only by upward vocal inflection. Since the two are indistinguishable in writing, there is punctuation for a question mark. In speech, though it is not included in writing except in records of dialogue, there is a sentence-final phrase “tŏmī,” which expresses a sentiment of “right?” or “isn’t that right?” and elicits listener response.

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