Justin B Rye 1995–2001
glossary sounds numbers nouns adjuncts pronouns verbs phrases syntax coinages examples lexicon

SECTION VI: PRONOUNS

VIa – Personal Pronouns

See IIIb for explanations of the person category labels here.

These words function more or less exactly as regular nouns, except that they never form possessive phrases (Vd) or themselves end in pronoun suffixes (below).  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:

desen·an you spoke

na desen·an it was you who spoke

thun·an beside you

na·da thun·an beside you

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.

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.

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:

jiapa my king (oblique case), i.e. ji·(a)p·(d)a

niamosor it ate itself (reflexive), i.e. niamo·(e)s·(o)r

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:

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.

SECTION VII: Verbs