Hindi/Pronouns

In Hindi, the pronouns are inflected depending on the number and case. The pronouns in Hindi can be declined into 9 cases. The direct case or the nominative case, the oblique case, the dative case, the genitive case, the ablative case, the instrumental case, the locative case, the ergative case and the vocative case. Out of these 9 cases, the direct case and the vocative case can be formed independently from the other cases but (some forms of) all the other cases are formed by adding certain postpositions (used as suffixes) to the oblique case pronouns. For some cases like the genitive case and the locative case, there are more than one postpositions (or suffixes) that are used but with different meanings.

1) Direct Case

Remark: यह is pronounced and वह is pronounced.

Examples:


 * मैं खेलता हूँ। = I play.
 * आप लिखते हैं। = You write.
 * रमेश सुनता है। = Ramesh listens.
 * वह नाचती है। = She dances.
 * यह सब क्या है? = What is all this?
 * ये सब क्या हैं? = What are all these?

2) Oblique Case

The oblique case (aka marked case) is a general-purpose case which is used to form other grammatical cases except for the direct and vocative cases by adding to them postpositions as suffixes. If you would check the following oblique cases pronouns and then look at the pronouns which are already discussed below, you would notice they how just by added postpositions as suffixes to the oblique cases all the cases (except the direct and vocative cases) are formed.

Remark –
 * The use of the oblique cases इन्हों and उन्हों rare except to form the ergative case pronouns. However, you could hear them being used commonly depending on the particular region where Hindi is spoken.


 * The lesser-used oblique cases are the ones on the right side of the slash (/). So, हमों, तुम्हारे, आपों, इन्हों, उन्हों are less commonly used and are predominantly used only in certain regions where Hindi is spoken.

3) Dative case

The dative case is generally used to indicate the noun/pronoun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave Mary a book". The thing being given may be a tangible object, such as "a book" or "a pen", or it may be an intangible abstraction, such as "an answer" or "help". The dative generally marks the indirect object of a verb.

"He built a snowman for me" can also be rendered as "He built [for] me a snowman". In this example, the generic objective pronoun "me" functions as a dative pronoun.

Examples:


 * मुझे एक कलम चाहिए। = I need/want a pen.
 * उसे एक खत मिला। = He got/found a letter.
 * इन्हें पानी दो। = Give them water.

4) Genitive Case

The genitive cases show possession. In Hindi, the pronouns and nouns in the genitive case agree with the number and gender of the direct object of the sentence.

Note - Although the nasalised feminine plural forms of the genitive case pronouns exist, these are rarely used colloquially and even less frequently in literally works. However, the nasalised plural forms are commonly used (but much less frequently than their non-nasal counterparts) when conjugating verbs according to gender and grammatical person and making the adjectives agree to the gender and number of the direct object of a sentence.

Examples:


 * ये किताबें मेरी हैं। = These books are mine.
 * मेरी किताबें पुरानीं हैं। = My books are old.
 * तुम्हारा घर बड़ा है। = Your house is big.
 * उसके पेड़ हरे हैं। = His trees are green.

5) Ablative Case

Ablative pronoun/nouns, in general, represent a motion away from something as "ablative" is derived from the Latin ablatus, the (irregular) perfect passive participle of auferre "to carry away". A rough translation for the ablative case would be "from pronoun"

Examples:


 * मुझसे गलती हो गई। - I made a mistake. (lit: A mistake was committed by me)
 * मेरा तुमसे भरोसा उठ गया। - I lost my faith in you. (lit. My trust from you is "stood up") [Note: The compound verb उठ जाना (lit. to get/rise up and go) is often used to show loss of trust/faith in something.]
 * आपसे यही उम्मीद थी। - This was expected from you.

6) Instrumental Case

Instrumental case pronoun/nouns are used to form comparatives and can also show that some action is done by/using somebody/something.

Examples:


 * माचिस से जलाइये। = Burn [it] with/using a matchstick.
 * वो अच्छे से कर रहा है। = He is doing it in a good manner. [lit. He is doing it "using" (or "with") a good manner.]
 * उसे नेहा से करवाऊँगा। = I'll make Neha do it. [lit. I'll do it using Neha.] (Note: Don't confuse उसे being in the Instrumental or Ablative case. It is instead the oblique case of the 3rd Person Proximal Pronoun.)

Note: The postposition for the ablative case and the instrumental case is the same (से).

7) Locative Case

The locative case indicates a location. It corresponds roughly to the English prepositions "in", "on", and "at" combined with nouns/pronouns.

The postposition पर (which is often shortened to पे ) when used as a suffix with the pronouns to form the locative case, it roughly means "on pronoun" or "at pronoun"

Examples:


 * मुझपे भरोसा करो। = Have faith in me. [lit. Have faith "on" me.]
 * वो तुमपर दया करे। = May he have pity on you.
 * सारी उम्मीदें उसपर टिकीं हैं। = All hopes rest on her.
 * तुमपे पैसे हैं? (slang) = Do you have money? (lit. Do you have money on you?) [Note: This is not the standard way Hindi shows possession. The standard way would be: तुम्हारे पास पैसे हैं?]

The postposition में when used as a suffix with the pronouns to form the locative case it roughly means "in pronoun" or "within pronoun"

Examples:


 * तुममें कुछ बात तो है। = You have something (special) in you.
 * उसमें कुछ रखा है। = There is something kept inside that.
 * बक्से में किताबें हैं। = There are books in the box.

8) Ergative Case

The ergative case marks the subject of a sentence. The ergative case is marked on agents in the preterite and perfect tenses for transitive, while in other situations agents appear in the nominative case.

Examples:


 * मैंने सब देख लिया। = I saw everything.
 * मैंने सब देख लिया है। = I have seen everything.
 * क्या तूने काम किया? = Did you do the job?
 * इसे नेहा ने खाया था। = Neha ate that. [Note: Changing the word order often emphasises certain parts of the sentence. See the next example.]
 * इसे खाया था नेहा ने। = Neha [was the one who] ate that.
 * तुम सब ने देखा वो? = Did you (all) saw that?

Remark – Often the word 'लोग' or 'सब' which means 'people' and 'all' (respectively) are added to plural pronouns for emphasizing and/or indicating the plurality. Such as वे लोग खाते हैं।, हम लोग खेलते हैं।, तुम सब गाते हो। and so on.

The ergative case is an optional case and all the sentence which can be said using the ergative case could also be equivalently said without it. In the northern and western dialects of Hindi, the ergative case is used by default and around the eastern regions where Hindi is spoken natively the ergative case is either optional or not used at all. The table below shows how equivalent non-ergative sentences could be formed from the ergative sentences.

Note: When the ergative case is not used, the verb agrees with the number and the gender of the subject in the sentence but when the ergative case is used, the verb, agrees in gender and number of the object of the sentence instead of the subject of the sentence.

9) Vocative Case

The vocative case is used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition. The pronouns in their vocative case are the same as the direct case pronouns but they can take prepositions to distinguish themselves from the direct case. There are many such vocative prepositions which are commonly used such as अरे! अबे! ओए! ओई! उफ़! ओहो!. Note that these are used under different contexts. For example, उफ़! and ओहो! shows disappointment or anger, ओए! is used to call somebody out, अरे! is used to show sudden realisation about something or also to call somebody out, अबे! (often considered rude) is the more intimate version of अरे! etc. The table uses अरे! as the default preposition to show the vocative case pronouns.

Examples:


 * अरे! सुनो मेरी बात। = Hey you! Listen to what I say.
 * ओहो ऐसा मत किया करो। = Please don't do [something] like this.

Note: The vocative prepositions are often cannot be translated into English.