Pronouns

Pronouns can substitute nouns and noun phrases.

Personal pronouns

Singular	Plural
me	mes
I, me	we
te	tes
you	you all
le	les
he or she	they

All pronouns can be used for all genders. The most common third person pronoun is le but also ye (this) and ve (that) can be used instead.

Reflexive pronoun

The reflexive pronoun is used when the object of a sentence is the same as the subject.

se – self

Note! The same reflexive pronoun is used for all persons, so it corresponds to English myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves and themselves all at once.

me vida se – I see myself.
le vida se – She sees herself. / He sees himself. / It sees itself.
mes vida se. – We see ourselves.

The word ses is used as the reciprocal pronoun.

ses – each other, one another

me e te vida ses. – Me and you see each other.
mes vida ses. – We see each other.

Demonstrative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns are:

ye / yi – this
ve / vi – that
le / li – it, the aforementioned

The form that ends in -e is used when the demonstrative stands alone, and the form that ends in -i is used when the demonstrative modifies a noun.

The proximal demonstrative ye points to things that are near the speaker. The distal demonstrative ve points to things that are far from the speaker.

ye sa boni. – This is good.
ve sa dusi. – That is bad.
me vola yi buke, no vi. – I want this book, not that.

The basic proximal and distal pronouns are used for introducing a new object. The topical demonstrative le, on the other hand, does not specify physical distance but it is used when the speaker has already mentioned the object or person in question and it is known by the audience or is topical within the discourse.

ye sa mau. le vola yama vi mux. – This is a cat. It wants to eat that mouse.

me mala un mau e un vaf. li vaf sa dayi. le yama polo yam. – I own a cat and a dog. The dog is big. It eats a lot of food.

Abstract use

The demonstrative pronouns can be used also discourse internally. Then they refer to abstract entities of discourse, not concrete objects. le refers to things previously spoken, ye refers to things currently being spoken, and ve refers to things about to be spoken.

yi jumle sa korti. – This sentence is short.

In the above, yi jumle (this sentence) refers to the sentence being spoken.

me mena ve: me ama te. – I mean this: I love you. OR I mean that I love you.
me ama te. le me mena. – I love you. That is what I mean.

In the above, the pronoun ve refers to the content of the next statement and de refers to the content of the previous statement.

Interrogative pronouns

ke is a general-purpose interrogative pronoun. It does the job of English words who and what.

ke? – Who or what?

The adjectival interrogative pronoun is ki and it means the same as English which.

ki xei? – What? (Which thing?)
ki jan? – Who? (Which person?)
ki zaman? – When? (What time?)

The adverbial interrogative pronoun is ko and it means the same as English how.

Also adjectives are questioned with ko.

ko novi? – How new?
ko kosti? – How costy?
ko poli? – How many?
ko dayi? – How big?
ko lili? – How small?

te tena ko dayi mau? – How big cat do you have?

Table of pronouns and other function words

Function words are words that help to structure other words into more or less complex sentences. It is a closed class of words, so new words can never be added to it. Content words, on the other hand, is an open, ever-growing class of words, and they refer to things in the world outside the structure of the language. Function words have only a structural role and therefore they behave differently than content words.

In Pandunia, the pronouns and other function words that are derived from them have the following characteristics:

1. The word is made up of one consonant and one vowel.
2. The consonant indicates the general idea of the word. Sometimes the same consonant is used for expressing two different ideas.
3. The vowel has a structural meaning, as follows:
   • -e indicates a pronoun
   • -i indicates a determiner, which indicates definiteness, possession, etc.
   • -o indicates an adverb of manner
   • -a indicates a preposition
   • -u indicates a postposition

	Idea	Pronoun	Determiner	Adverb	Preposition	Postposition
1	Speaker	me	mi
		I	my
2	Addressee	te	ti
		you	your
3	Topical	le	li	lo	la
		that (aforesaid)	the (aforesaid)	as aforesaid	from, since
4	Proximal	ye	yi	yo	ya
		this	this	like this	at, in, on
5	Distal	ve	vi	vo	va
		that	that	like that	to, for
6	Identity	se	si		sa
		self	's own		be; as
7	Question	ke	ki	ko
		what?	which?	how?
8	Existence	he	hi	ho	ha
		(some)one	some, a(n)	really	with; there is
9	Non-existence	ne	ni	no	na
		none	not any	not; no	without
10	Relative	de	di		da	du
		which	which		of	's