Dal'qörian personal pronouns
Personal pronouns refer to people or things.
Nominative (subject) pronouns
The dal’qörian nominative personal pronouns (the subject of the sentence or clause) are:
| binä | I/I am |
| diö | you/you are |
| mæ | he/he is |
| sia | she/she is |
| éren | they/they |
| tiÞ | it/it is |
| ména | we/we are |
There are also two impersonal pronouns in dal'qörian: minä-you/one and minäla-they, and these are used when referring to people in general, the subjunctive mood, and to equate the use of the passive tense in English (see Verbs):
- am iáda, minä näocr nörasägrax dal'qörian! One cannot learn dal'qörian in a day!
- minäla gä’escanostr di abödä,, qösra tiÞ gé’stæméras. The house was demolished because it was dangerous. (lit: They demolished the house, because it was unsafe).
As you can see, the subject pronouns can also carry the present tense inflections of the verb to be: am, are, is. In dal'qörian, one can assume that am/are/is can always be taken as read when a noun or pronoun is:
ː Followed by a present participle (a verb with the ia inflection)
ːFollowed by an uninflected adjective (including modifying words such as very/extremely)
am/are/is are not to be taken as read when a noun or pronoun is:
ː Followed by a modal verb (see Verbs-Modals)
ːFollowed by the infinitive of a verb (a verb that ends in r)
ːFollowed by the imperfect and perfect past tense of a verb
ːFollowed by an inflected adjective
examples:
- binä göria nöra. I am going now.
- di gadörajel tädø. The dogs are tired.
- dörac iáda, ména gä’vecsár! We argued all day!
- öcra tirimiÞ, sia gé’námaroqu disiri. She was very depressed for a long time.
- iáda, Gáré recévria ni Bemöa. Gary is getting a BMW today.
- stæ’irønet, vonéri sol, eviár binä abödä. I rarely get home before 6.
- éren voltir ni didérämös. They want a drink.
Accusative (direct object) pronouns
The accusative pronoun is the 'object' of the sentence or the thing that is affected by the action of the verb:
- I asked him.
- She gave her the book.
- They told us to go-away!
The dal'qörian accusative (or objective) pronouns are:
| binöra | me/myself |
| diöra | you/yourself |
| mæöra | him/himself |
| siöra | her/herself |
| érenöra | them/themselves |
| tiÞöra | it/itself |
| ménöra | us/ourselves |
NOTE: Unlike English, the accusative personal pronouns you (pl & sing) and it are not the same as the nominative. You will also see that these pronouns count as reflexive pronouns (see Reflexive Pronouns)
Dative (indirect object) pronouns
In English, there is no distinction between a dative or an accusative pronoun (unlike say German, which can have up to three forms of the pronoun: I-ich, me/myself-mich and to me-mir). English can however, distinguish a dative pronoun with the preposition to:
- I gave the book to her.
- She gave it back to me.
- We must distribute these leaflets to the people.
Sometimes, the sentence can be re-arranged, or the preposition can be omitted:
- I gave [to] her the book.
- She gave me it back.
In dal'qörian, a dative pronoun is constructed with the preposition te which attaches to the nominative with a high apostrophe. In this instance, the dative pronoun/object must then 'follow' the subject because of dal'qörian prepositional word order (see Prepositions)
- binä, te'sia, gä’andöcr di lalégraj. I gave her the book/I gave the book to her. (lit: I, to she, gave the book).
- sia, te'binä, gä’ädandöcr. She gave it back to me/She gave me it back. (lit: She, to me, returned it).
NOTE: In the last example, the verb ädandöcr means literally to give something back/to return something, therefore, does not need the pronoun tiÞ-it.
