D'ni grammar/Pronouns
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[edit] Personal Pronouns
Personal Pronouns appear in 2 kinds: indepedent words (in accusative, like 'me, him, her' etc) or suffixes (subjects to verbs or possessors).
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | |
| Nom. | - (I) | -em (Thou) | -en (He) |
| Gen. | -ö (My) | -om (Thy) | -on (His) |
| Dat./Acc. | zú (Me) | sem (Thee) | tah (Him) |
| Nom. | -et (We) | -tí (You) | -ít (They) |
| Gen. | -ot (Our) | *-tú (Your) | -os (Their) |
| Dat./Acc. | set (Us) | shemtí (You) | íst (Them) |
[edit] Nominative
The nominative forms are suffixed to the verbs as subjects. eg. to say 'he finds' we add suffix –en 'he' to verb stem húr- 'to find' to form húren.
There is no 1st person in nominative, and we use the bare verb stem. Eg. tägan to form 'I love'
[edit] Genitive
Genitive forms are suffixed to nouns to indicate possessors of that noun. Eg. korom ‘thy book’, navaot ‘our master’, únrätíos ‘their lords’.
We don’t know the 2nd plural genitive form, and the form -tú is hypothetical, according to the remaining examples. The form –os is irregular.
[edit] Accusative/Dative
Accusative is used when a pronoun is the direct object of a verb. English examples are 'I love him', 'I choose you'. Dative is when the pronoun is the indirect object, ex: 'I talk to you', 'You work for him'. Accusative/Dative pronouns unlike the others, are independent words. Eg. chev shem ‘I thank you’, tagema b’zú ‘give to me!’ (Note: Most examples of these pronouns occur in the dative case (i.e., as indirect objects) -- the case for the accusative is less strong.)
It is hypothetically assumed therefore that the accusative of 3rd person singular and plural can be sen and sít respectively.
[edit] Other pronouns
There are also other pronouns:
- met 'this'. Indicative pronoun which follows the noun. Eg. bacana met, 'this map' but it is also prefixed to the noun eg. ametm'la, 'this lizard' (a- is a "direct object indicator". The rules for using it are not quite clear, in translations it can be omitted.)
- mot 'that, which'. Relative pronoun. Eg. rem'la seken poant, mot tornen, ‘the lizard has saliva, which it spits’, also used with the element gor ‘time’ and forms gormot ‘then’
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