Pronouns

Pronouns may be considered a subgroup of nouns, because both fill the same functions in a sentence (subject, object, and so on) and bear case endings. Pronouns, essentially, replace nouns or noun phrases to avoid repreating them. The main distinction between pronouns and regular nouns is that pronouns are never modified by adjectives, prepositional phrases, or relative clauses, as nouns frequently are. There are eight personal pronouns, representing the first, second and third persons.

Personal Pronouns

First and Second Persons

	I	thou	you	we	you (pl.)
Nom	ío	tú	yú	nós	uós
Gen	mín	tín	ín	nosom	uosom
Dat	méy	tuy	yuy	nofyo	uofyo
Acc	mé	té	yé	nosa	uosa
Ins	mevi	tevi	yevi	nofi	uofi
Loc	mí	tí	í	nossu	uossu

Third Person

	he, she	they	he, she, it, they, -self
Nom	ci	cís	-
Gen	ços	çom	sín
Dat	cí	civyo	suy
Acc	cim	cin	sé
Ins	çé	civi	sevi
Loc	cí	cichu	sí

In Çomyopregi, neither the nominative nor genitive forms are encountered often. Concerning the genitive: unlike nouns, the genitive is not usually used for possession. Instead, possessive adjectives are used. (Cf. Adjectives and Numerals.) Concerning the nominative, in Çomyopregi, as in most European languages, personal endings on the verb already indicate who the verb's subject is, so the subject pronouns are not needed except for emphasis. Sé, the reflexive pronoun, only has non-nominative forms anyway. This is a third person pronoun used to refer back to the subject of the sentence — if the regular third person were used again instead, it would imply that there was another person involved:

(Ci) sé níguet. "He washes himself."
(Ci) cim níguet. "He washes him [someone else]."

Çomyopregi third-person pronouns are limited to actual persons (this sometimes includes animals, too) — there is no "it." Instead, when "it" is meant, it is up to the personal endings to indicate the subject. In fact, "it" need not even be mentioned when it is the direct object, because if the verb is transitive and there is no explicit direct object, then it is implied that the direct object is "it." However, on those occasions when "it" absolutely must be said, then a demonstrative pronoun is used, which brings us to another table . . .

Interrogative, Relative, and Demonstrative Pronouns

	what, which	who	who, which, that	who, which, that	that, it	those, they
Nom	quo	qui	yo	yós	so, to	tós
Gen	quosyo	quisyo	yosyo	yóm	tosyo	tóm
Dat	quóy	quí	yóy	yovyo	tóy	tovyo
Acc	quom	quim	yom	yon	tom	ton
Ins	quové	quivé	yové	yovi	tové	tovi
Loc	quoy	quí	yoy	yochu	toy	tochu

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions, like "who?" or "what?" They do not distinguish number, but use only singular forms, even if more than one thing is in question. There are also relative pronouns, which join clauses to the rest of the sentence, like "the man who ran to work today". In English, the relative pronouns are "which", "who", and "that." In Çomyopregi, there is a separate set of relative pronouns, but they do not distinguish personal and impersonal (or animate and inanimate) like the interrogative and demonstrative. The demonstrative pronouns are used to "point things out", such as "this" or "that". The demonstrative pronouns by default are distal; that is, they mean "that", referring to more distant things. The proximal ("this") demonstratives are created by prefixing oy-: oyto, "this", oytós, "these".

The interrogative pronoun is the basis of other types of pronouns. The indefinite pronoun, sinqui, "somebody", is formed by prefixing sin- to the interrogative pronoun. Likewise, prefixing pan- gives panqui, "everybody," the universal pronoun, and prefixing ne- gives nequi, "noone," the negative pronoun. This parallelism holds up for all kinds of demonstrative, interrogative, etc., forms, and can be represented in the great "Table of Correlatives," which if you studied Esperanto, has probably already been beaten into your head.

Table of Correlatives

	Demonstrative	Interrogative	Relative	Indefinite	Universal	Negative
Personal	ci	qui	yo	sinqui	panqui	nequi
Impersonal	to	quo	yo	sinquo	panquo	nequo
Quality	táli	quáli	ti quáli	sinquáli	panquáli	nequáli
Motive	pro tóy	pro quóy	pro yóy, ti pro quó	pro sinquó	pro panquó	pro nequó
Manner	tové	quové	yové, ti quové	sinquové	panquové	nequové
Time	tondo	quondo	ti quondo	sinquondo	panquondo	nequondo
Location	tér	quér	ti quér	sinquér	panquér	nequér
Direction toward	téra	quéra	ti quéra	sinquéra	panquéra	nequéra
Direction away from	téret	quéret	ti quéret	sinquéret	panquéret	nequéret
Quantity	totyo	quotyo	ti quotyo	sinquotyo	panquotyo	nequotyo

In the above table, please note that the words indicating manner are merely the instrumental of the impersonal forms, and the words for reason or cause are the corresponding dative with pro-, "for," prefixed. The oddballs in this table are the relative forms, which are sometimes based on the stem yo-, and sometimes on the interrogative form, preceded by ti.

One final pronoun of importance which does not fit into any of the systems above is monu, "one," sometimes called a "fourth-person pronoun." It is used in speaking of a person in a generalized, hypothetical way. It is declined like a regular u-stem noun.

Now, with the pronouns, we have concluded the so-called nominal parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, and pronouns), and move onto verbs.