Quenya/Personal pronouns

Personal pronoun endings
Most personal pronouns are used as endings with a conjugated verb. These can be found on the pages about ../Verbs/ and ../Imperative/.

Short pronoun endings
Not much is all too known of the short pronoun endings, as they currently have only 3 attested forms:
 * -n


 * -s


 * -t

Of -l, it is theoretically guessed based on the forms of the attested short pronouns, and can be understood by others in usage.

Of what we know, their use in sentences were as a subject pronoun with no object pronouns:
 * lantan "I fall"


 * - "lanta-n" "fall-I"


 * lendes "He/She/It went"


 * - "lendë-s" "went-he/she/it"

And as object pronoun endings, following a long subject pronoun form (3rd Pers. Pl. -t seems to only be in this category, as it could be easily mistaken for a dual elsewhere):
 * laituvalmet "We shall bless/praise them"


 * "laituva-lmë-t" "praise shall-we(Exc.)-them"


 * utúvienyes! "I have found it!"


 * "utúvië-nyë-s" "have found-I-he/she/it".

Long pronoun endings
One special use of these endings exists: they can be added to a preposition. With the preposition ara "against" as an example:

With -s / -së, it does not distinguish the gender of the 3rd person, and is used for he, she and it. Despite this, the gender of the 3rd person can be found in the context of the sentence, by either name of a being or by what it is.
 *  i nér mahtas macil "The man wields a sword"


 *  i nís mahtas hatal "The woman wields a spear"

(In the Quenya exemplified in the Lord of the Rings however -mmë is the 1st person plural exclusive;  -lmë the 1st person plural inclusive and  -lvë the 1st person dual — See the Problem of the Canon Middle-earth canon).

When the preposition ends in a consonant we use the connecting vowel e (and as with verbs  i in the first person singular) (  or is a preposition meaning "over, above"):
 * orinyë "over me", orelyë "over you",  orentë "over them", ...

Independent personal pronouns
These are used when no ending is possible or when the personal pronoun has to be in a case other than the nominative, e.g. Here "to me" has to be in the dative case so we use the personal pronoun ni with the dative ending  -n.
 * nin antalyes "you give it to me"

Note: The forms of the 3rd person singular depend on the whether they're animate or inanimate. 3rd person singular does not recognise gender, so it can mean either he or she:


 * Oromë senna lendë "Orome went to him/her"


 * Oromë sanna lendë "Orome went to it"

The cases of ta cannot be translated literally, i.e.  tallo isn't translated by "from it" but by "from there", ....


 * Oromë tanna lendë "Orome went (over)there"


 * Oromë tassë hamë "Orome sits thereupon/therein"

The difference between the 1st person plural and dual is translated by using "both" with the dual:


 * imbë me "between us"


 * imbë met "between us both"

The nominative of these independent pronouns is used in the following situations:
 * 1. When the verb has a direct object that is a personal pronoun and a subject that isn't:


 * i lië te latuva "the people will bless them"


 * Note the difference with:


 * i lië latuvantë "they will bless the people"


 * 2. When a gerund or an active participle has a personal pronoun as direct object:


 * utúlien le cenien "I have come to see you"


 * me cénala vánes "while he saw us (seeing us), he left"


 * i elda se suilala "the elf greets him/her"


 * 3. After prepositions (but in that case we mostly apply the ending to the preposition):


 * ve nyë "like me"


 * 4. With the copula ná the verb can be omitted and replaced by a personal pronoun:


 * nyë aran "I am king"


 * le halla "you are long"

The word order is again quite free, but in principle the nominative always immediately precedes the verb (except of course when used with prepositions). The other cases either immediately precede the verb or immediately follow the verb:


 * órenya quéta nin / órenya nin quéta "my heart says me"

Emphatic personal pronouns
Sometimes we want to emphasize the personal pronoun and in that case we don't use endings but separate words.

Let's look at an example, non-emphatic we use endings:
 * hiruvalyes "you shall find it"

When we want to emphasize that "you" found it, we change this into:
 * elyë ta hiruva "even you shall find it"

Note: ta is an ordinary independent pronoun because it cannot stay an object ending if no subject ending is present.

An example in the first person:
 * inyë tyë méla "even I love you"

These forms can also be used as direct object:
 * mélalyë inyë "you love even me"

An overview of the emphatic personal pronouns:
 * inyë "I, me"


 * elyë "you"


 * essë, issë "he/she/it, him/her/it"


 * inquë "thou-and-I"


 * emmë "we, us" (dual)


 * elmë "we, us" (excl.)


 * elvë/elwë "we, us" (incl.)


 * ilcë "you" (plural)


 * esto "they, them" (dual)


 * intë "they, them"

When we use an emphatic pronoun we do not add a personal ending to the verb:
 * elyë lala "you laugh"

But in the plural we still use the ending -r:
 * elmë lalar "we laugh"


 * elyë matë "you eat" (singular)


 * ilcë matir "you eat" (plural)

The negation of a verb with an emphatic pronoun always uses lá (see ../Verbs/):
 * elyë lá linda "even you don't sing"

Note: The emphatic pronouns can be declined in all cases, e.g.:
 * elmen "for us" (dative)


 * inyenna "towards me" (allative)

The Informal Second Person
There is a poorly attested form in Quenya that is used for the informal second person singular (in English we see no difference, but some examples of other languages are French "tu", German "du", Dutch "jij"). The normal second person is more neutral, i.e. it can both be informal and formal (French "vous", German "Sie", Dutch "u").

The informal forms are only used when the person spoken to is very close, a brother, sister or very good friend.

The personal pronoun subject ending is -ccë:
 * maticcë "you eat"

The object ending doesn't have an (attested) informal form, so we always use -l:
 * ceninyel "I see you"

The independent forms are based on the stem ce-:


 * Dative: cen


 * Ablative: cello


 * Allative: cenna


 * Locative: cessë


 * Instrumental: cenen


 * Respective: ces.

An example with the dative:
 * antan cen lótë "I give you a flower"

The nominative has an exceptional form: tyë.
 * atar tyë canë "father commands you"

The emphatic form is:
 * eccë "even you"

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