Novial: Pronouns


Personal:

Singular Plural
1 me nus
2 vu vus
3m lo los
3f la las
3(epicene) le les
3n lum

The "epicene" pronoun is used for living beings when the sex is not known or important. Both "le" and "lum" translate "it" in English, but "lum" is a true neuter and "le" is (as indicated) epicene: a baby or animal might be "le" but a house is "lum." (this may be confusing, since neuter nouns usually end in -e. But according to Jespersen's usage in his translation of "The Emperor's New Clothes" he uses "lum" for the invisible garment, though the only nouns in -um seem to be abstracts.

Reflexive: se
Reciprocal: mutu = each other, one another

In the following, the -i forms are actually adjectives but are grouped with the pronouns because they directly relate to them; so "that" as an adjective would be "ti" (that man); as a pronoun it takes all the forms of the 3rd person. Thus "ta" is "that one," if referring to a female; "tes" means "those": the whole group can be figured out from this.

Demonstrative: ti (te, to, tes, tum, etc.) = that
disi (dise, disum, etc.) = this
tali (-e, etc.) = such
tanti (-es, -um) = so much, so many
sami = same
self (invariable) = self: les ha self dikte lum = they have said it themselves.
English speakers may ask: "How does 'self' differ from 'se'?" The distinction is clearer in other languages such as German; it is about the same as between "selbst" and "sich" - one is a sign of emphasis, one of reflexivity.

Interrogative: qui, que, quo, qua, quum
Relative: kel (usually no ending except for genitive kelen )
Indefinite: nule = none, omne = all, irge = anyone, kelke = some, sertene = a certain one, chake = each, altre = another

Note that the English word "that" has many meanings: relative pronoun (kel in Novial) as in "the man that came to dinner," demonstrative adjective (ti) as in "I want that book, not this one," demonstrative pronoun (tum) as in "He sent me that," and even conjunction (ke ) as in "He said that he would come." English speakers must be careful about that.
For more details, see the web pages that have been put up giving the details of the chapter in An International Language on pronouns.
Last modified by B. R. Gilson (brg@netcom.com) May 24, 1997.
This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

Back to my home page

Back to the main language page

Back to the main Novial page