Dal'qörian pronouns
Pronouns are words used in place of nouns. They are usually divided into the following categories:
| Personal pronouns | I, you, he, she |
| Reflexive pronouns | himself, themselves, ourselves |
| Demonstrative pronouns | that, those, this |
| Possessive pronouns | mine, yours, his, hers |
| Relative pronouns | that, which, who |
| Interrogative pronouns | who?, when?, what? |
| Reciprocal Pronouns | each other, one another |
| Indefinite pronouns | some, few, a little |
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns refer to people or things. This saves repetitave use of a noun.
Nominative (subject) pronouns
The Dalcurian 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 are |
| tiÞ | it/it is |
| ména | we/we are |
There are also two impersonal pronouns: 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 English (passive tense (see Verbs):
- Am iáda, minä näocr nörasägrax Dal'qörian! One cannot learn Dalcurian 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 Dalcurian, one can assume that am/are/is can always be taken as read when a noun or pronoun is:
- Followed by a present participle (a verb with the ia inflection)
- Followed 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:
- Followed by a modal verb (see Verbs-Modals)
- Followed by the infinitive
- Followed by the imperfect and perfect past tense
- Followed 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, Garé 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!
Dalcurian accusative (or objective) pronouns inflect to show this, but nouns do not:
| binöra | me/myself |
| diöra | you/yourself |
| mæöra | him/himself |
| siöra | her/herself |
| érenöra | them/themselves |
| tiÞöra | it/itself |
| ménöra | us/ourselves |
Dative (indirect object) pronouns
The Dalcurian dative simply puts the preposition te-to before a nominative pronoun (or noun) as a 'non-static' prefix (prefixes that attach with a high apostrophe). This then means the phrase must follow prepositional word order wherever necessary:
- 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.
Dummy pronoun it
The dummy pronoun it is used in English as follows:
- It is raining, it isn't fair
it in this instance doesn't really refer to anything or an object, but is used to make the sentence grammatical. In Dalcurian, tiÞ is never used as a dummy pronoun; the adverb danöÞ idiomatically replaces this:
- DanöÞ danpöria. It's raining.
- DanöÞ morgér,, taÞ ela qoÞ. It seems that all is ok.
