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Pronouns

Personal and reflexive pronouns​

Personal pronouns have six cases—the same as nouns but without the vocative. The reflexive pronoun sebe is inflected like ty, tebe, …, the only difference being that it does not have a nominative.

The forms between brackets are clitic forms, i.e., they are weaker and always unstressed. Se is used in reflexive verbs: Ja myju se „I'm washing myself”. If it needs to be stressed, the longer form is used: Ja myju jedino sebe „I wash nobody but myself”. After a preposition, it is better to use the longer forms: k mně, za tebe.

1st person2nd person 3rd person
masc.neut.fem.
nom. ja ty on ono ona
acc. mene (me) tebe (te) jego (go) ju
gen. mene tebe jego jej
dat. mně (mi) tobě (ti) jemu (mu) jej
ins. mnoju toboju jim jeju
loc. mně tobě jim jej
Notes

After a preposition, all pronouns of the third person are preceded by n-: jego > do njego; jim > pri njim, etc. (for that reason, the locative forms jim, jej and jih never occur, as the locative is always preceded by a preposition)

If you are curious how these forms relate to the Slavic languages, you can see them compared here.

A few more notes regarding usage:

  • Because not all verb endings are equally obvious to all speakers of Slavic languages, pro-drop (i.e. omitting personal pronouns when they are the subject of a sentence) is not recommended. It is better to say ja čitaju instead of just čitaju, although the latter is definitely not incorrect.
  • Prepositions can govern any case but the nominative, depending on their usage in the Slavic languages.
  • The pronoun on refers to any noun of masculine gender and not only to male beings. In the same way, the pronoun ona refers to any noun of feminine gender and not only to female beings.
  • As all natural Slavic languages, Interslavic has got T-V distinction, i.e. vy is a universal second person pronoun for both numbers, whereas the second person singular ty is used only for addressing friends, relatives and children.
  • The reflexive pronoun can also be used as a reciprocal pronoun: Oni bijut se can mean „They are hitting themselves”, but would rather have the meaning: „They are hitting each other”. To be more explicit about the meaning „each other”, you can add the formula jedin drugogo:, e.g.: Oni bijut se jedin drugogo.

Possessive pronouns​

The possessive pronouns are inflected like adjectives, except for the zero ending in the masculine singular. The forms are:

  • moj, moja, moje „my”
  • tvoj, tvoja, tvoje „your, thy”
  • naš, naša, naše „our”
  • vaš, vaša, vaše „your (pl.)”
  • svoj, svoja, svoje „one's own” (reflexive)

In the third person, it is most common to use the genitive of the corresponding personal pronoun: jego, jej, jih. These forms are not inflected. Alternatively, one can also use the following forms, which are declined like adjectives:

  • jegov, jegova, jegovo „his”
  • jejin, jejina, jejino „her”
  • jihny, jihna, jihno „their”

Whenever the possessor is also the subject of the sentence, the reflexive svoj is used, no matter whether this subject is in the third person or not: Ja myju svoje avto „I am washing my car”. Note the difference in meaning when the reflexive pronoun refers to a subject in the third person:

Pjotr dal Ivanu svoju knigu „Pjotr gave Ivan his [= Pjotr's] book” Pjotr dal Ivanu jegovu knigu „Pjotr gave Ivan his [= Ivan's] book”.

There are also interrogative, definite and indefinite possessive pronouns: čij „whose”, ničij „nobody's”, něčij „somebody's”, etc. They are inflected like moj. For more forms, see the section about correlatives.

Just like adjectives, possessive pronouns correspond with the noun they modify in gender, number and case. Except for the masculine nominative and accusative singular, their declension is identical to that of adjectives (moj, tvoj, naš, vaš, svoj and čij like svěži; jegov, jejin and jihny like dobry):

m.
(animate)		m.
(inanimate)		n.f.
nom. moj moje moja
acc. mojego moj moju
gen. mojego mojej
dat. mojemu mojej
ins. mojim mojeju
loc. mojem mojej

Demonstrative pronouns​

The primary demonstrative pronoun is toj „this, that”, and it should be used whenever there is no need to distinguish explicitly between „this one over here” and „that one over there”.

If we need to be more precise, the simplest solution is using tutoj for „this” and tamtoj for „that, yonder”. They are declined as follows:

m.
(animate)		m.
(inanimate)		n.f.
nom. toj to ta
acc. togo toj tu
gen. togo toj
dat. tomu toj
ins. tym toju
loc. tom toj

Notes​

  1. Less simple, but historically more accurate, is the following three-way distinction: sej (f. sa, n. se) for „this”, toj for „that” and onoj for „yonder”. It should be remembered, however, that sej has practically vanished from most modern languages except for a few fossilized remnants. It may therefore not always be clear.
  2. Another demonstrative pronoun is ov, meaning the same thing as sej. However, its meaning is very different in the modern languages.
  3. Tutoj, tamtoj, ov and onoj are declined like toj.
  4. Instead of the plurals tyh, tym and tymi one might sometimes encounter těh, těm and těmi.

Relative pronouns​

The relative pronoun that is used most frequently is ktory. It is inflected like an ordinary adjective. Alternatively, South Slavic koj (inflected like moj) can be used as well. Their meanings are identical and they can be used interchangably.

A third option is the more archaic iže – used in the nominative for all genders, both singular and plural; in other cases it is inflected like a form of the personal pronoun on/ona/ono with the suffix -že: m.gen. sg. jegože, m.dat. sg. jemuže etc.

Interrogative pronouns​

The interrogative pronouns are kto „who” and čto (or što) „what”. They are inflected as follows:

who?what?
nom. kto čto
acc. kogo
gen. čego
dat. komu čemu
ins. kym čim
loc. kom čem

Interrogative determiners are koj (inflected like moj) „which” (instead, ktory can be used as well), the possessive pronoun čij „whose” (see above), and the adjective kaky „what kind of”.

Indefinite pronouns​

This is a large group of pronouns and determiners, most of which are derived regularly from the interrogative pronouns. There are several categories:

Referring to all items (universal) (vs-): vsi or vsekto „everyone, everybody”, vse or vsečto „everything”; ves (f. vsa, n. vse „whole, entire; all”); cěly „whole, entire”; vsaky „each, every”; vsekaky „each kind of, all sorts of”; vsečij „everybody's”.

Refering to no items (negative) (ni-): nikto „no one, nobody”, ničto „nothing”, nikoj, nijedin and nikaky „not a single, none”, ničij „nobody's”.

Referring a single unspecified item (ně-): někto „someone, somebody”, něčto „something”, někoj „some”, někaky „some kind of”, něčij „someone's, somebody's”.

Referring to several unspecified items (poně–): poněkoj „some, several”, poněkaky „several kinds of”.

Referring to a large group of items: mnogy „much, many, a lot of”.

Referring to any member of a group (-koli, -nebud, libo-): ktokoli, libokto, kto-nebud „anyone, anyone”, čtokoli, libočto, čto-nebud „anything”; kojkoli, libokoj, koj-nebud „any”, kakykoli, libokaky, kaky-nebud „any kind of”; čijkoli, libočij, čij-nebud „anyone's, anybody's”. To indicate indifference, the adverb bylo can be used: bylo kto „no matter who, just anybody”, bylo čto „no matter what”, etc.

Referring to another item of a group (in-): inokto „someone else”, inočto „something else”, iny „other”, inočij „someone else's”.

Vsekto, nikto, něčto, čtokoli etc. are inflected like kto and čto. Likewise, nikoj, něčij etc. are inflected like koj and čij (and thus like moj). Ves is inflected as follows:

m.
(animate)		m.
(inanimate)		n.f.
nom. ves vse vsa
acc. vsego ves vsu
gen. vsego vsej
dat. vsemu vsej
ins. vsim vseju
loc. vsem vsej

Pronominal adverbs​

One of Zamenhof's best inventions was his table of correlatives, a group of interrelated pronouns, adjectives and adverbs. There words have been kept as regular as possible, but not at the expense of recognisability for speakers of Slavic languages. A few virtually impossible words have been left out, and a few other regular forms have been replaced by forms that are common in the natural languages. Irregular forms (i.e. not looking the way they should according to the table) are shown in italics.

question
k-		here
s-		there
t-		yonder
on-		some
něk-		several
poněk-		any
k-nebud, k-koli		no
nik-		every
vs-		else
in-
which? koj sej,
tutoj		toj,
tamtoj		 onoj někoj poněkoj koj-nebud kojkoli nikoj, nijedinvsakyiny
who? kto někto — kto-nebud ktokoli nikto vsekto, vsi inokto
what? čto se to ono něčto poněčto čto-nebud čtokoli ničto vsečto, vse inočto
how much? koliko seliko toliko onoliko několiko — koliko-nebud kolikokoli —
whose? čij — něčij — čij-nebud čijkoli ničij vsečij inočij
what kind of? kaky saky taky onaky někaky poněkaky kaky-nebud kakykoli nikaky vsaky inaky
how? kako sako tako onako někako poněkako kako-nebud kakokoli nikako vsako inako
where? kde sde, tutude, tam onde někde poněkde kde-nebud kdekoli nikde vesde inde
whereto? kamo samo tamo onamo někamo — kamo-nebud kamokoli nikamo vsamo inamo
when? kogda segda, sejčas togda onogda někogda poněkogda kogda-nebud kogdakoli nikogda vsegda inogda
whither? kudy sudy tudy onudy někudy — kudy-nebud kudykoli nikudy vsudy inudy
whence? odkudy odsudy odtudy odonudy odněkudy — odkudy-nebud odkudykoli odnikudy odvsudy odinudy
why (purpose)? čemu — tomu — něčemu — čemu-nebud čemukoli ničemu ——
why (reason)? začto — zato — zaněčto — začto-nebud začtokoli zaničto ——
Notes
  • In all cases when koj appears, ktory can be used interchangeably.
  • In all cases when -gda appears, -gdy can be used interchangeably.
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This article has been republished with the permission of its original author, Jan van Steenbergen.