Personal Pronouns

Declension Paradigms of Personal Pronouns

First Person (I, me, we, us) – all genders

Singular Plural

Nom:egonōs

Gen:meīnostrum / nostrī

Dat:mihinōbīs

Acc:mēnōs

Abl:mēnōbīs

Second Person (you, ya’ll) – all genders

SingularPlural

Nom:tūvōs

Gen:tuīvestrum / vestrī

Dat:tibivōbīs

Acc:tēvōs

Abl:tēvōbīs

Third Person (he/his/him, she/hers/her, it, they/their/them) – some variation by gender

SingularPlural

MFNMFN

N:is eaideīeaeea

G:eiuseiuseiuseōrumeārumeōrum

D:eīeīeīeīseīseīs

Acc:eumeamideōseāsea

Abl:eōeāeōeīseīseīs

Personal Pronouns

What does the term “personal pronoun” mean?

  • “Personal” means “relating to person,” meaning 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person
  • A “pronoun” is a word that stands prō (i.e. “for” or “in place of”) a noun
  • Ergo, a “personal pronoun” is a pronoun that relates to the first, second, or third person.
  • 1st person pronouns: I, me, we, us
  • 2nd person pronouns: you, ya’ll
  • 3rd person pronouns: he, his, him, she, hers, her, it, its, they, their(s), them

IN ENGLISH:

  • Personal pronouns are necessary for verb conjugation
  • I eat chicken. You cook chicken. We love chicken. They will NOT touch my chicken.
  • 2nd person is tricky b/c “you” can be singular (i.e. “you (alone)”) or plural (i.e. “you (all)”) based on context
  • Some personal pronouns in English are inflected to show different cases
  • subjective case (I, we, he, she, they)
  • objective case (me, us, him, her, them)

IN LATIN:

  • Personal pronouns are NOT required for verb conjugation
  • edō pullum. coquis pullum. amāmus pullum. meum pullum nōn tangēbunt.
  • personal verb endings show the pronouns you would need in English

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Personal Pronouns

  • -ō = “I”
  • -s = “you”
  • -t = “(s)he/it”
  • -mus = “we”
  • -tis = “you”
  • -nt = “they”

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Personal Pronouns

  • A personal pronoun going with the verb places emphasis on who performs the action of the verb.
  • ego amō pullum – “I love chicken”
  • tūne pullum amās? – “You like chicken?”
  • nōs carnem nōn edimus! – “We do not eat meat!”
  • The pronoun would always be nominative case when it accompanies the verb in this way.
  • As in English, the Latin personal pronouns inflect to show different cases but, unlike English, they inflect in more than two forms. They inflect across all of the cases that Latin nouns normally have.
  • ego odī eum! - “I hate him.”
  • nōnne mē amās? – “You don’t like me, do you?”
  • da mihi illam pilam! – “Give me that ball!”
  • nōn dabō eam/idtibi/vōbīs– “I will not give it to you.”
  • omnēs nōbīs serviant – “Let them all serve us.”
  • When saying ablative of accompaniment phrases such as “with me” or “with you”, etc., the preposition cum becomes an enclitic –cum for the first and second person pronouns
  • mēcum(“with me”) and nōbīscum (“with us”)
  • tēcum(“with you”) and vōbīscum(“with you (pl.)”)
  • Some examples:
  • “Will you live with me?” Habitābisne mēcum?
  • “We will stand with all of you.” Nōs omnibus vōbīscum stābimus.
  • “I am going to stay with myself today.” Hodie mēcum mansūrus sum.
  • But cum does NOT become an enclitic with the third person personal pronoun, is, ea, id.
  • currite, puerī, cum eō. “Run with him, boys!”
  • eamus cum eīs Rōmam. “Let’s go with them to Rome.”
  • For ego/nōs and tū/vōs, if the person of the verb and the person of the pronoun are the same, and the personal pronoun is NOT nominative, it will be considered REFLEXIVE and should be translated as “(pronoun)self.”
  • amō mē. “I love myself.”
  • nimium laudās tē. “You praise yourself too much.”
  • servāte vōs. “Protect yourselves.”
  • servimus nōbīs. “We serve ourselves.”
  • N.B. In the 3rd person, you use forms of the pronoun suī, sibi, sē, sēto say “himself, herself, itself, themselves.”
  • possunt sē audīre. “They can hear themselves.”
  • illesē odit. “That man hates himself.”
  • magister sibiplus temporis dabit. “The teacher will give himself more time.”

Distinguishing nōs from noster, vōs from vester

  • The genitive form of the Latin personal pronouns is NOT used for genitive possession. Latin uses a possessive adjective instead to say and in English:
  • meus, -a, -um = “my”/“mine”
  • tuus, -a, -um = “your”/“yours”
  • noster, nostra, nostrum = “our”/“ours”
  • vester, vestra, vestrum = “your”/“yours”
  • The genitive of these personal pronouns gets used for other genitive constructions: objective and partitive.
  • Objective genitive:
  • Those students have a great fear of me.
  • illī discipulī magnam timōrem meī habent.
  • Partitive genitive:
  • Certain ones of us ought to go to the forum.
  • quīdam nostrum ad forum īre debent.

Practice Sentences:

  1. “Love me always.”
  1. “Will you live with me?”
  1. “I love you (pl.)”
  1. “You are sitting on my rock.”
  1. “Hold me, Quintus.”
  1. “Give me the book, dad!”
  1. “I will fight with you!”
  1. “Will that bad slave-dealer (mangō, magōnis, m.) kill us?”
  1. “Sing me a song, o Muses!”
  1. “Have me and hold me now.”
  1. “Appius, where (quō, adv.) are you carrying me?
  1. “My teacher often likes to show me several new words.”
  1. “Your mother and father truly do not love you, boys and girls.”

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