{"id":61,"date":"2011-05-26T16:45:19","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talossan.org\/?page_id=61"},"modified":"2011-05-26T16:45:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:45:19","slug":"pronouns","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/?page_id=61","title":{"rendered":"Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Talossan pronouns are perhaps the most difficult part of speech to master. Just as we distinguish in English between &#8220;she&#8221; (a first-person singular subject pronoun) and &#8220;her&#8221; (a first-person singular object pronoun), this same distinction is made in Talossan (the two equivalent pronouns being <em>a <\/em>and <em>la<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>However, unlike English, Talossan subject and object pronouns sometimes change form when used before a verb (in &#8220;normal position&#8221;) and after a verb (in &#8220;inversion&#8221;). For example, <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">a<\/span> esteva<\/em> (= she was) and <em>esteva<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">-t-a<\/span><\/em> (= was she).<\/p>\n<p>Talossan also has a third pronoun form, a form that is used in prepositional phrases. Although English would simply use the object pronoun (&#8220;her&#8221;) in a prepositional phrase such as &#8220;with her&#8221;, Talossan uses another form of the pronoun, <em>eia<\/em>, when forming the phrase <em>c\u00fcn eia<\/em> (= with her).<\/p>\n<p>Complicating this further for the new learner is the fact that the form of a pronoun used in a prepositional phrase can change (through <a href=\"\/?page_id=502\">consonant mutation<\/a>) depending on the preposition. This is seen in the examples <i>\u00e0 thu<\/i> (= to you) and <i>per dtu<\/i> (= for you).<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully the world of Talossan pronouns is clearly detailed by the information provided here.<\/p>\n<h2>Subject Pronouns in Normal Position<\/h2>\n<p>A subject pronoun can appear in either &#8220;normal&#8221; position (before a verb, as in <em>tu isch aic\u00ec<\/em> = you are here) or, as to indicate a question, in &#8220;inverted&#8221; position, meaning attached to the end of a verb (as in <em>\u00bfisch-tu aic\u00ec?<\/em> = are you here?).<\/p>\n<p>When in normal position, the Talossan subject pronouns have the forms that are listed below with their English equivalents:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>\u00e9u <\/em>(= I) \u2014 this pronoun is often seen without the accent mark, as <em>eu<\/em>, but always should be pronounced as two separate syllables, and not as the diphthong.<\/li>\n<li><em>tu <\/em>(= you [informal])<\/li>\n<li><em>o <\/em>(= he) [pronounced as if spelled <em>u<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li><em>a<\/em> (= she)<\/li>\n<li><em>\u00e7a <\/em>(= it, and also the neuter form of they)<\/li>\n<li><em>noi <\/em>(= we)<\/li>\n<li><em>voi <\/em>(= you-all [&#8220;you guys&#8221;] and <a href=\"#formalYou\">the &#8220;formal&#8221; you<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><em>os <\/em>(= they [of unimportant gender or including at least one male]) [pronounced as if spelled <em>usch<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li><em>as <\/em>(= they [all female])<\/li>\n<li><em>si <\/em>(= the general pronoun). This pronoun is used to express a general, ubiquitous &#8220;anyone and everyone&#8221; feel. It would be used in place of the underlined words in the Talossan equivalents to sentences such as &#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">you<\/span> never know what <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">you<\/span>&#8216;re gonna get&#8221; and &#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">they<\/span> say all good things must pass&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Subject Pronouns in Inverted Position<\/h2>\n<p>Subject pronouns follow the verb in two cases: when the sentence is a question, or when the sentence is a command. In those cases, the subject pronoun is positioned after the verb, and attached to it, using the following rules:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The subject pronoun <em>\u00e9u <\/em>gets inverted to its place after a conjugated verb by removing the <strong>-\u00e9u<\/strong> or <strong>-eu<\/strong> that ends the verb form and replacing it (using an apostrophe in writing) with <strong>&#8216;\u00e9u<\/strong>. The apostrophe indicates only a short pause in speech to distinguish the similar-sounding normal and inverted forms of the same verb. That is, the pause aids to distinguish <em>tisch\u00e9u<\/em> (= I will have) from <em>tisch&#8217;\u00e9u<\/em> (= will I have). If the verb does not conjugate to end with <strong>-\u00e9u<\/strong> or <strong>-eu<\/strong>, however, the pronoun is inverted without any change to the verb, and the two are joined in writing using a hyphen, as in <em>sint-\u00e9u<\/em> (= am I).<\/li>\n<li>When used in inversion, the subject pronoun <em>tu <\/em>gets contracted to the end of a conjugated verb, a contraction indicated in writing as <strong>&#8216;t<\/strong>. For example, <i>estev\u00e1s&#8217;t<\/i> (= were you). Again, this is only the case if the verb conjugation ends with <strong>-\u00e1s<\/strong>; if the verb conjugates irregularly, the pronoun is inverted without change, hyphenated to the verb in writing, as seen in <em>f\u00fct-tu<\/em> (= were you) [using the alternate past tense conjugation of the verb <em>estarh<\/em>].<\/li>\n<li>The subject pronouns <em>o <\/em>(= he) and <em>a<\/em> (= she) get attached to the end of the verb as <strong>-t-o<\/strong> and <strong>-t-a<\/strong>, as in <em>esteva-t-o<\/em> (= was he). Again, this is only the case if the verb conjugation is ends in <strong>-a<\/strong> (or <strong>-\u00e0<\/strong>); if the verb conjugates irregularly, the pronoun is inverted unchanged and hyphenated to the verb in writing, as in <i>f\u00fct-a<\/i> (= was she).<\/li>\n<li>All other subject pronouns are always inverted unchanged, and hyphenated to the verb in writing. For example, <em>os<\/em> (= they) is inverted in <em>estevent-os<\/em> (= were they).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Object Pronouns in Normal Position<\/h2>\n<p>Object pronouns can also appear in &#8220;normal&#8221; position (before a verb) and in &#8220;inverted&#8221; position (after the verb and attached to it in writing using a hyphen).<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;normal&#8221; form of a Talossan transitive verb clause is &#8220;(subject) (object) (verb)&#8221;, as in <em>\u00e9u en am\u00e9u<\/em> (= I love it, which literally translates to English as &#8220;I it love&#8221;). Here are the forms of the Talossan object pronouns when they appear in this &#8220;normal&#8221; (before the verb) position.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>me <\/em>(= me)<\/li>\n<li><em>te <\/em>(= you [informal])<\/li>\n<li><em>lo <\/em>(= him) [note that this is pronounced as if spelled <em>lu<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li><em>la <\/em>(= her)<\/li>\n<li><em>en <\/em>(= it)<\/li>\n<li><em>noi <\/em>(= us)<\/li>\n<li><em>voi <\/em>(= you-all, or you [formal])<\/li>\n<li><em>lor <\/em>(= them)<\/li>\n<li><em>se <\/em>(the objective case of <em>si<\/em>, and used as the reflexive object). This pronoun is used for all cases where the subject and the object are the same. So in this sense is it equivalent to any of &#8220;myself&#8221;, &#8220;yourself&#8221;, &#8220;herself&#8221;, &#8220;yourselves&#8221;, &#8220;themselves&#8221;, &#8220;itself&#8221;, etc. For example, <em>os se ha\u00dfent<\/em> (= they hate themselves) and <em>noi s&#8217;ament<\/em> (= we love ourselves). Notice that the use of <em>se <\/em>(as a form of the general subject pronoun <em>si<\/em>, which appears in sentiments such as &#8220;one never knows&#8221;) for this purpose gives Talossan reflexive statements rather unique semantics: that is, <em>se vid\u00e9u<\/em> (= I see myself) is literally &#8220;I see one&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The forms <em>me<\/em>, <em>te<\/em>, <em>lo<\/em>, <em>la<\/em>, and <em>se<\/em> all elide, losing their second letter and being contracted to the verb with an apostrophe if that verb begins with a vowel. For example, <em>a m&#8217;ama<\/em> (= she loves me) is proper, while <em>a me ama<\/em> would only be used if you wished to express emphasis, as in &#8220;she loves <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">me<\/span> (and not someone else)&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h2>Object Pronouns in Inverted Position<\/h2>\n<p>Object pronouns can be used in &#8220;inversion&#8221;, which means they are moved (unchanged in all cases) behind the verb and attached to it in writing using a hyphen. This can only be done in two cases, which are if the verb form is an infinitive form or an imperative (command) form.<\/p>\n<p>For example, you can say <em>ha\u00df\u00e9u \u00e0 vidarh-en<\/em> (= I hate to see it), since <em>vidarh <\/em>is in the infinitive form. Notice that you would not construct this phrase as <em>en ha\u00df\u00e9u \u00e0 vidarh<\/em>, since then the meaning would be the rather nonsensical &#8220;I hate it to see&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>An example of an object pronoun appearing in inversion in an imperative (command) statement would be <em>\u00a1frapetz-me!<\/em> (= hit me!). Subject pronouns can also appear in inversion in commands; since commands are always directed to either the &#8220;you&#8221; or the &#8220;you all&#8221; subject, this typically poses no problem. However, when both a subject and an object pronoun are used in a command, only the subject pronoun can appear in &#8220;inversion&#8221;. That is, both <em>\u00a1me frapetz-tu!<\/em> and <em>\u00a1tu me frapetz!<\/em> (both = hit me!) are proper, and <em>\u00a1tu frapetz-me!<\/em> is not.<\/p>\n<h2>Object Pronouns in Prepositional Phrases<\/h2>\n<p>Talossan prepositions are &#8220;strong&#8221; parts of speech, and their comparative &#8220;strength&#8221; over that of the pronoun is heard (and seen in writing). While most Talossan parts of speech will &#8220;give up&#8221; their weak ending (such as eliding its final <strong>-a<\/strong>) in deference to the next word, to assist in the flow of speech, the preposition resists this tendency. Instead, the Talossan preposition &#8220;forces its will&#8221; onto the word that follows, and that word then has the obligation of changing its beginning to assist in the flow of speech.<\/p>\n<p>This change is <a href=\"\/?page_id=145\">consonant mutation<\/a>, and not only is it heard in speech, but when the mutating word is a pronoun, it must be indicated in writing.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When following a preposition ending in a vowel:\n<ul>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>me <\/em>(= me) mutates to <em>mhe <\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>te <\/em>(= you) has the form <em>tu<\/em>, which mutates to <em>thu<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>noi <\/em>(= us) mutates to <em>nhoi<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>voi <\/em>(= y&#8217;all) mutates to <em>vhoi<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>lor <\/em>(= them) mutates to <em>lhor<\/em> (but is pronounced irregularly, as if still spelled <em>lor<\/em>, a form in which it is often now seen)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When following a preposition ending in a consonant:\n<ul>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>te <\/em>(= you) has the form <em>tu<\/em>, which mutates to <em>dtu<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>lo<\/em> (= him) has the form <em>o<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>After all prepositions:\n<ul>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>la <\/em>(= her) has the form <em>eia<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>\u00e7a<\/em> (= it) is used unchanged<\/li>\n<li>the object pronoun <em>\u00fcns<\/em> (= us) may be used as an alternative to <em>noi<\/em> or <em>nhoi<\/em>, and is in fact the usual choice after <em>da <\/em>(forming <em>dad \u00fcns<\/em> = to us).<\/li>\n<li>the reflexive object pronoun <em>se <\/em>has the form <em>so<\/em>. This form is always proper, but it is also acceptable for first- and second-person subjects to use the same form as would be used for the actual subject. For example, <em>o en zoneva \u00e0 so<\/em> (= he gave it to himself) and <em>\u00e9u en zoneveu \u00e0 mhe<\/em> (= I gave it to myself); note the use of <em>mhe <\/em>(which could also have been <em>so<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example, <em>a en compreva per dtu<\/em> (= she bought it for you) and <em>a en zoneva \u00e0 thu<\/em> (= she gave it to you).<\/p>\n<p>One other little oddity here is that the word <em>casa <\/em>(= house) can be used as a preposition, meaning &#8220;at the house of&#8221;, and in this construction, <em>casa lui<\/em>, an affectation from French, can be seen in place of <em>casa lo<\/em> (both = at his house).<\/p>\n<h2>Other Pronouns<\/h2>\n<p>The demonstrative pronoun <em>acest <\/em>(= this or that) and its feminine form <em>aceasta<\/em> share the plural form <em>acestilor <\/em>(which is pronounced irregularly, as if spelled <em>ac\u00e9sceler<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>There are about a dozen other demonstrative, interrogative, relative, and indefinite pronouns, such as <em>neviens <\/em>(= nobody), <em>n\u00ed\u00feil <\/em>(= nothing), and <em>ingenc\u2019hosa <\/em>(= anything) that you should be aware of.<\/p>\n<p>Talossan also has a set of possessive pronouns, each of which &#8220;comes with&#8221; a required definite article. For example, <em>el m\u00e9u <\/em>(= mine). These are discussed on the Webpage concerning <a href=\"\/?page_id=180\">genitive indication<\/a>, the ways to indicate possession of one noun by another.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"formalYou\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>The Informal and Formal &#8220;You&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>Talossan is like most other Romance languages in having two different pronouns for the English &#8220;you&#8221; \u2014 one that is called the &#8220;informal you&#8221;, and the other that is called the &#8220;formal you&#8221;. The idea behind this is that one would use the &#8220;formal you&#8221; when addressing a superior, either an elder or someone in a position of authority, and one would use the &#8220;informal you&#8221; when addressing anyone else \u2014 someone equal or subordinate to you in a social or family situation.<\/p>\n<p>This is a feature that exists in archaic English: the pronouns &#8220;thou&#8221; and &#8220;thee&#8221; were the subject and object pronouns for informal use, and &#8220;ye&#8221; and &#8220;you&#8221; were the subject and object pronouns for formal use. In modern English, of course, the distinction has disappeared, and &#8220;you&#8221; is used for all purposes and to address anyone.<\/p>\n<p>While Talossan does retain this Romance feature, in truth the &#8220;formal you&#8221; is very rarely used, and you should almost invariably stick to using the &#8220;informal you&#8221; forms.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing to notice is that the &#8220;formal you&#8221; pronouns and conjugated forms are also (and much more often) used for the &#8220;you-all&#8221; sense. So that <em>voi estetz ben<\/em> means &#8220;you (formal) are good&#8221; while <em>voi estetz bens<\/em> means &#8220;you-all are good&#8221;, and the only way to tell them apart is the fact that the adjective here \u2014 <em>ben<\/em> (= good) \u2014 is singular in one of the sentences and plural in the other. (Note that English retains a remnant of this same double-use of the formal form in the so-called &#8220;Royal We&#8221;; the way a reigning monarch refers to himself or herself as &#8220;We&#8221;, and to his or her possessions as &#8220;Our&#8221;, etc.).<\/p>\n<p><center><a onmouseover=\"this.style.cursor='hand'\" href=\"\/?page_id=67\"><input class=\"inputSubmit\" onclick=\"window.location='\/?page_id=67'\" type=\"button\" value=\"Next: Prepositions Of Talossan, By Talossan, and For Talossan...\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talossan pronouns are perhaps the most difficult part of speech to master. Just as we distinguish in English between &#8220;she&#8221; (a first-person singular subject pronoun) and &#8220;her&#8221; (a first-person singular object pronoun), this same distinction is made in Talossan (the two equivalent pronouns being a and la). However, unlike English, Talossan subject and object pronouns [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":55,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}