pandunia

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns and noun phrases in a sentence. They keep us from repeating the same words over and over again. Here’s an example of a sentence without pronouns:
My mother is a teacher but my mother is also a singer and my mother sings beautifully.
It sounds clumsy and repetitive. Here’s the same sentence with a personal pronoun:
My mother is a teacher but she is also a singer and she sings beautifully.
The latter sentence sounds fluent and smooth.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to people. They are used in place of a person’s name or title.

Singular	Plural
me	memen
I, me	we
tu	tumen
you	you all
ho	homen
he or she	they

All pronouns can be used for all genders. In Pandunia, personal pronouns do not specify whether the person discussed is a woman or a man. For example, in the third person, one word – ho – refers to women, men and people of other genders alike. It is a gender-neutral personal pronoun and it treats everyone equally.

The singular 2nd person pronoun tu can be used in all situations, both formal and informal, regardless of differences in social status and age of the speakers. In this way it is similar to Scandinavian du and different from German du, French tu, Russian ты (ty) and Hindi tū, which are used typically only with family members and intimate friends.

There are three first-person plural pronouns. tumemen is the inclusive we that includes the audience: ‘you, I and other people’. homemen is the exclusive we that excludes the audience: ‘I and other people only’. Finally, memen is the neutral we that can be both inclusive and exclusive. It is also the most common first-person plural pronoun, and the other two are used only occasionally.

The possessive pronouns consists of the personal pronoun and the possessive particle di.

Singular	Plural
me di	memen di
my	our
tu di	tumen di
your	your
ho di	homen di
his or her	their

Reflexive pronoun

The reflexive pronoun is used when the object of a sentence is the same as the subject.

se – self

Note! The same reflexive pronoun se is used for all persons, so it corresponds to English myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves and themselves all at once.

me viza se. – I see myself.
ho viza se. – She sees herself. / He sees himself. / It sees itself.
memen viza se. – We see ourselves.

The expression alale is used as the reciprocal pronoun.

alale – each other, one another

tu e me viza alale. – You and I see each other.
memen viza alale. – We see each other.

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are used with nouns to make them more specific. The demonstrative pronouns in Pandunia are:

yi – this (near the speaker)
vi – that (far from speaker)
li – the (known by both the speaker and the listener)

The proximal demonstrative yi points to things that are near the speaker. The distal demonstrative vi points to things that are far from the speaker.

tu vola vi buk, he? – Do you want that book?
no, me vola yi buk, no vi. – No, I want this book, not that.

The demonstratives can serve as subjects and objects in the same way as nouns.

yi sa boni. – This is good.
vi sa dusi. – That is bad.
tu vola yi, he? – Do you want this?
no, me vola vi. – No, I want that.

yi viza du jan. – This one sees two persons.
yi gani e vi no gani. – This one sings and that one doesn’t sing.

The basic proximal and distal pronouns are used for introducing a new object. The topical demonstrative li, on the other hand, does not specify physical distance but it is used when the speaker has already mentioned the object or person in question and it is known by the audience or is topical within the discourse.

yi sa mau. ho vola yama vi mush. – This is a cat. It wants to eat that mouse.

me hava un mau e un gau. li gau sa dai. ho yama multi yam. – I have a cat and a dog. The dog is big. It eats a lot of food.

Abstract use

The demonstrative pronouns can be used also discourse internally. Then they refer to abstract entities of discourse, not concrete objects. li refers to things previously spoken, yi refers to things currently being spoken, and vi refers to things about to be spoken.

yi jumla sa korte. – This sentence is short.

In the above, yi jumla (‘this sentence’) refers to the sentence being spoken.

me sema vi: me ama tu. – I mean this: I love you. OR I mean that I love you.
me ama tu. me sema li. – I love you. That is what I mean.

In the above, the pronoun vi refers to the content of the next statement and li refers to the content of the previous statement.

Interrogative pronouns

que is a general-purpose interrogative pronoun. It does the job of English words ‘who’ and ‘what’.

que – what?

The interrogative pronoun takes the place of the questioned thing in the phrase. It is not placed in the beginning of the phrase unlike normally in English.

que sa ho? – What is it?
que sa vi jan? – Who is that person ~ he ~ she?
tu vola que? – What do you want? (Literally: You want what?)
que sa a mez? – What is on the table?
que sa a entre da haus? – Who is inside the house?

The possessive interrogative pronoun is built like the other possessive pronouns.

que di ~ que jan di – whose

que di haus sa ho? – Whose hose is that?

Identity is questioned with qui ‘which, what (of those mentioned or implied)’.

qui jan – which person, who
qui haus – which house
qui zaman – what time

Adjectives are questioned with quo ‘how’.

quo novi? – How new?
quo kosti? – How costy?
quo multi? – How many?
quo kam? – How few?
quo dayi? – How big?
quo leti? – How small?

tu hava quo multi mau? – How many cats do you have?

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