Pronouns are those words which stand in the place of nouns in a sentence. Alurhsa pronouns fall into roughly the same categories as those of Indo-European languages: personal, indefinite, relative, possessive, interrogative, and demonstrative. Like nouns, pronouns are declined to show case. The use of the cases is the same, so for a description of them please see the section on nouns.
Personal pronouns in Alurhsa follow roughly the same pattern as many languages, they show person (first, second, third), and number (singular or plural). Alurhsa personal pronouns also show gender throughout the singular, and in some cases in plural forms as well. Personal pronouns are declined using the same cases and endings as singular nouns. Note that plural personal pronouns do not take plural case endings.
One oddity with declension of pronouns is that the neuter forms, which end in -ë, do not follow the noun declension on this. The -ë is retained and the pattern for words which end with vowels is followed. It is also important to note that one-syllable pronouns ending in -ë are an exception to the rule that an ultra-short vowel may never bear stress.
The first person pronouns are:
Singular: lhe, lhá,
lhë, lhó, lháne
Plural: ólve, ólvá,
ólvë, ólvó, ólváne
The five pronouns of each number listed above reflect the five genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, conceptual, spiritual. Obviously for the singular, the masculine and feminine are the most common, with neuter being used only in narratives, poetry, or literature where the speaker's gender is either unknown or the "speaker" is specifically a non-living object or of a third gender. The conceptual is found only in similar literary usage. The spiritual is used exclusively when relating the words of God.
The plural masculine and feminine are used only when the group being spoken of is composed entirely of that gender. By far the most common form is the neuter, which represents both mixed and unknown genders. The conceptual and spiritual are found only in literature, with the latter being used exclusively when relating the words of God speaking only of the Divine "we".
The second person pronouns present a myriad of options. Alurhsa has three different varieties of second person, based on the speaker's relationship with, and feelings toward, the person being referred to. The three forms are: familiar, formal, depreciative.
The familiar second person pronouns are used when referring to friends, family, and pets or other domestic animals. Be careful not to use these forms with someone you do not consider in one of those categories. Although the offense does not carry the same level as it does in some Terran languages, it is still an indication of forcing familiarity where it has not yet been achieved. The familiar second person pronouns are:
Singular: ólye, ólyá,
ólyë, ólyó, ólne
Plural: ólyár
The singular forms reflect the gender of the person referred to, with masculine and feminine being obviously the most common, but neuter being in frequent use when referring to an unknown such as "the reader". The conceptual is found only in poetic and literary usage. The spiritual is used exclusively when referring to God.
The plural has only one form, which is used without regard to gender. However it is only used when all of the persons referred to fall into the category of familiarity.
An older form of the plural may be encountered in ancient literature, or still in some rural dialects. This one is gender specific, and follows the same rules as the first person plural. The forms are: álve, álvá, álvë, álvó, álváne.
The formal second person is used in all occasions when the person referred to is not a friend, family member, or pet. This is a wider application than many Terran languages, since non-relative children, pets or animals of another person, and wild animals, are all referred to using the formal pronouns, not the familiar. If in doubt, always use the formal pronouns. As with the familiar, the singular pronouns reflect gender, however unlike the familiar, the plural also reflects gender. The rules for gender use are as for the first person. The forms are:
Singular: ólyev, ólyáv,
ólyëv, ólyóv, ólnev
Plural: ólyevár, ólyávár, ólyëvár, ólyóvár, ólnevár
Note that the gender formation of these pronouns is internal, not an ending as is customary. The formal pronouns derived from the familiar, which was the original set, by the addition of -v, which is a suffix currently having no other usage. The plural is formed by adding the collective suffix -ár.
Note also that it is unusual to use these pronouns, even in the spiritual gender, in reference to God, The assumption is that all people are in God's family, thus only the familiar forms are used.
The final set of second person pronouns is the depreciative. This form is unique to Alurhsa so far as has been found, and is used to express anger, bitterness, dislike, or other negative feelings towards the person referred to. Do not use these forms lightly. They are considered very insulting. But, they may be found in literature, so the student should be aware of them. The forms are:
Singular: ólyeven,
ólyáven, ólyëven, ólyóven
Plural: ólyevenár
Note that there is no spiritual form to this set, as it would be considered blasphemous beyond imagination for an Alurhsa to refer to God in this way. The masculine, feminine, and conceptual forms are quite rare, as it is normal to use the neuter form of the depreciative as a further insult.
An alternate, shorter, singular pronoun, yeven, exists which has no gender differentiation, and which is harder to confuse with the familiar and formal sets. A plural form of yeven exists, which is yevenár. An older set of plural forms may be encountered rarely in classical literature: ólyeveñká, ólyáveñká, ólyëveñká, ólyóveñká. Gender for these works as for other gendered plural pronouns.
The third person pronouns are:
Singular: dhe, dhá,
dhë, dhó, dháne
Plural: dyár
An older, gendered, set of third person plural pronouns may be found in older literature, or in some rural dialects: dye, dyá, dyë, dyó, dyáne. The standard plural form, dyár, is derived from this older set by the addition of the collective suffix -ár to the neuter, which drops the ultra-short -ë.
The gender rules for these pronouns are as for the others listed, but due to the nature of third person pronouns the neuter and conceptual forms are far more common than their first and second person counterparts. The neuter is used whenever the specific gender of a masculine or feminine person or object is not known, and it should be understood that this usage is not considered insulting.
Pronouns are used syntactically in the same way as nouns, with one interesting exception. It is common, although not universal, for the direct object, if it is a pronoun, to precede the verb, rather than follow it. Thus, Zhë dheve ghelô zhë tháván (The man sees the woman); Zhë dheve dhán ghelô (The man sees her). Note, however, that there is nothing wrong with zhë dheve ghelô dhán, it is simply equally common to hear it with the pronoun before the verb.
Alurhsa possessive pronouns, which correspond to English my, your, his, their, and so on, come in two forms, an independant, and a dependant. The dependant form is used most often. The dependant form does not decline, and is connected with its noun object, or with the first adjective describing that noun if that adjective precedes it, by a hyphen. Examples:
lháls-várhen - my car
lháls-sín várhen
- my red car
The independant form is used for emphasis, or when the object is not stated. When used for emphasis, but the noun object is present, the independant forms do not decline. However, when used alone, they take the normal case endings. In this latter usage they are most likely to be translated by mine, yours, ours, or theirs. Examples:
Ghelálÿ lháls-várhenán - I see my car.
Ghelálÿ lháles várhenán - I see my car.
Ghelálÿ lhálesán - I see mine.
The possessive pronouns are:
lháls-, lháles - my,
mine
ólves - our, ours (Note: same
form for both dependant and independant)
óls-, óles - your,
yours (familiar, singular)
ólyárs-, ólyáres - your, yours
(familiar plural)
bháls-, bháles - your,
yours (formal singular)
ólyëvárs-, ólyëváres - your,
yours (formal plural)
ólyevens-, ólyevenes
- your, yours (depreciative singular)
ólyevenárs-, ólyevenáres - your,
yours (depreciative plural)
dhyáns-, dhyánes -
his, her/hers, its
dyárs-, dyáres - their, theirs
Alternate forms exist in some dialects, primarily rural ones. álves is both a dependant and independant form of the familiar second person plural. várs- is a dependant form of the formal second person plural. vens- is a dependant form of the depreciative second person singular, with venárs- for the depreciative second person plural. Note that no independant forms of várs-, vens-, or venárs- are extant, and the full standard form is used instead.
Note that there is no gender differentiation any of the possessive pronouns, including the third person. Thus, his, her, and its are all translated by dhyáns- or dhyánes. The only way to specifically indicate something belonging to a person of one gender versus another person of another gender is to use the genitive/locative forms of the personal pronouns, eg. zhë várhen dháyá (the car of her) versus zhë várhen dheyá (the car of him).
There exists also an alternate form of the third person
possessive, zháls- with an
independant form zháles, which is
used to refer to the most recently mentioned antecedent.
This is equivalent to the Esperanto possessive sia,
meaning his/her/its own, but is far
less used. It is only employed where
there could be confusion over which of two possible people is the possessor,
otherwise dhyáns-/dhyánes is
employed. eg. Ráyáne ghelelû zhë dheven zárâ zháls-sálekán Rayane saw the man pick up his (the man's) book.
If the intention is to specify the possessor as being other than the
nearest antecedent, either dhyáns-/dhyánes can be used, or the antecedent can be repeated in
the genitive/locative. eg. Ráyáne
ghelelû zhë dheven zárâ dhyáns-sálekán, Ráyáneyá.
It is also common to use the genitive/locative form of the
reflexive pronouns for an emphatic possessive.
eg. Bíhálÿ lhíyá hályen I
like my own language.
Finally, in some situations, especially with body parts and other items which are characteristic of the possessor, the definite article zhë may be used in place of the possessive. Thus: Dhá mósù zhë lrüqîn She combs her hair.
Reflexive pronouns in Alurhsa might better be called intensive pronouns, since the true reflexive meaning is achieved with the reflexive voice of verbs. The reflexive pronouns, by comparison, function similarly to the Anglo-Irish use of self, and the standard English use of own in possessives.
All of the reflexives end in -í, which pulls the stress in the word to itself. The pronouns themselves are not gendered. The set of reflexive pronouns is as follows:
lhí - myself
ólí - yourself (familiar singular)
ólyëví - yourself (formal singular)
yevení - yourself (depreciative
singular)
dhí - himself, herself, itself
ólyárí - yourselves (familiar
plural)
ólyëvárí - yourselves (formal
plural)
venárí - yourselves (depreciative
plural)
dyárí - themselves
There are dialectal forms for two of these:
álví - yourselves
(familiar plural)
dyí - themselves
There is one more reflexive pronoun, zhí, which is often translated as onesself. zhí is used when the subject can be of any person: first, second, or third. It is often found in proverbs and other generalizations.
The reflexive pronouns decline in the same manner as nouns ending in vowels other than ë. As noted before, the genitive/locative of the reflexive pronouns is often used as an intensive possessive pronoun. The accusative can be used with a reflexive verb to give emphasis to the reflexive quality. In general, the reflexive pronouns are more common in Alurhsa than in English, and often should be translated by emphasis rather than any specific word.
The demonstrative pronouns are those which are used to indicate a particular item. In English these are this and that. Alurhsa has two more demonstrative pronouns, but the principle is the same.
The demonstrative pronouns are:
úmázhë - this
tázhë - that
zhánë - yon
yáshë - other,
another
káls - such
a
The basic meaning of these is the same as English. úmázhë is used of things which are near the speaker, or have been recently mentioned. Note that this second part of the definition means that úmázhë is used much more often than this in English, since an item being mentioned in a previous sentence is enough to refer to it as úmázhë in Alurhsa, where in English that would be used due to the item not being near the speaker. At times, this usage parallels the English the latter.
tázhë, that, is used to refer to an item somewhat farther away from the speaker, closer to the listener. It is also used where in English one might use the former.
zhánë refers to items that are not physically near either the speaker or the hearer. The archaic English yon, which has the same meaning, is the best translation, but it is important to note that zhánë is still in active use.
yáshë, another, is considered a pronoun by Alurhsa grammarians because functionally it works the same as úmázhë, tázhë, and zhánë.
All four of the above pronouns decline, and when used adjectivally must be in the same case as their noun object. Note that when used adjectivally, like descriptives (the Alurhsa term for adjectives and adverbs), these pronouns occur exclusively with singular endings. They only take plural endings when they stand alone, at which point they follow the same rule as nouns in that the plural is only used if context does not indicate plural in some other way.
The case endings used are the same as those of nouns, but unlike nouns ending in -ë the demonstrative pronouns retain the ë in all cases of the singular except the genitive/locative. In the plural, the ë is dropped and plural endings applied, as with nouns. Thus, they decline as follows:
úmázhë
Singular: úmázhë,
úmázhá, úmázhënÿ, úmázhën, úmázhëxná, úmázhëç
Plural: úmázhó,
úmázháóná, úmázhónÿ, úmázhón, úmázhóxná, úmázhóç
tázhë, zhánë, and yáshë all decline in the same way.
In older literature the reader may come across gender specific forms of these pronouns. The gender endings are:
Masculine: -e
Feminine: -á
Neuter: -ë
Conceptual: -ó
Spiritual: -ne
As can be seen, the neuter form eventually eclipsed the others, and is now used without regard to the gender of the noun. However, older forms, such as: úmázhe, úmázhá, úmázhë, úmázhó, and úmázhne may be encountered in classical literature, or in modern literature where older forms are used for effect, or in extremely formal situations. The gender specific forms decline regularly, and even the neuter form may adopt a regular genitive in -ëyá.
The pronoun káls, such a, is irregular in that it does not take case endings if used adjectivally. Thus, káls dheve (such a man), káls dheveyá (of such a man). If káls is used independently, then case endings are employed, thus kálsá (of such a one).