Personal Pronouns
PIE had personal pronouns in the first and second person, but not the third person, where demonstratives were used instead. They were inflected for case and number (singular, dual, and plural). The personal pronouns had their own unique forms and endings, and some had two distinct stems; this is most obvious in the first person singular, where the two stems are still preserved, as for instance in English I and me. There were also two varieties for the accusative, genitive and dative cases, a stressed and an enclitic form. Many of the special pronominal endings were later borrowed as nominal endings.
The following tables give the paradigms as reconstructed by Beekes and by Sihler.
| Personal pronouns (Beekes) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First person | Second person | ||||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||
| Nominative | *h₁eǵ(oH/Hom) | *uei | *tuH | *iuH | |
| Accusative | stressed | *h₁mé | *nsmé | *tué | *usmé |
| enclitic | *h₁me | *nōs | *te | *uōs | |
| Genitive | stressed | *h₁méne | *ns(er)o- | *teue | *ius(er)o- |
| enclitic | *h₁moi | *nos | *toi | *uos | |
| Dative | stressed | *h₁méǵʰio | *nsmei | *tébʰio | *usmei |
| enclitic | *h₁moi | *ns | *toi | ? | |
| Instrumental | *h₁moí | ? | *toí | ? | |
| Ablative | *h₁med | *nsmed | *tued | *usmed | |
| Locative | *h₁moí | *nsmi | *toí | *usmi | |
| Personal pronouns (Sihler) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First person | Second person | ||||||
| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
| Nominative | *eǵoH | *weh₁ | *we-i | *tī̆ (*tū̆) | *yuh₁ (*yūh₁?) | *yūs (*yuHs?) | |
| Accusative | tonic | *m-mé (> *mé) | *n ̥h₁-wé | *n̥smé | *twé | *uh₁-wé | *usmé |
| enclitic | *me | *nō̆h₁ | *nō̆s | *te | *wō̆h₁ | *wō̆s | |
| Genitive | tonic | *mé-me | *n̥sóm | *té-we | *usóm | ||
| enclitic | *mos (adj.) | *nō̆s | *tos (adj.) | *wō̆s | |||
| Dative | tonic | *mébhi | *n̥sm-éy | *tébhi | *usm-éy | ||
| enclitic | *mey, *moy? | *nō̆s | *tey, *toy | *wō̆s | |||
| Ablative | *mm-ét (> *mét) | *n̥sm-ét | *tw-ét | *usm-ét | |||
Other reconstructions typically differ only slightly from Beekes and Sihler (see for example Fortson 2004).
Read more about this topic: Proto-Indo-European Pronouns
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or pronouns:
“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“In the meantime no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)