PRON:
Definition
Pronouns are words that substitute for nouns or noun phrases, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context. Pronouns under this definition function like nouns.
In Middle Persian, all personal pronouns have an oblique variant, viz. the enclitic pronouns. Only the 1st singular pronoun preserves case marking for the orthotone variant: direct case an vs. oblique case man. Since the oblique form becomes generalised, it is not annotated as marked for case, only the exceptional direct case form an is annotated as marked for case.
Number marking is rare unless a form is inherently plural (e.g. awēšān “those”). According to Early New Persian evidence (ū vs. vey), the 3rd singular pronoun and demonstrative pronoun ōy should have had a variant away (or similar). However, it is not possible to distinguish them in writing.
Middle Persian makes extensive use of placeholders and resumptive pronouns (dislocated:res). All pronouns can be used as determiners though some texts show preferences as to which pronoun to pick. Personal pronouns and the reflexive pronoun xwēš are considered possessive determiners if they precede their headword (det:poss). The relfexive pronouns mirror the person and number features of the subject.
- man pid “my father”
- xwēš pid “my, your, her, … father”
Reciprocal pronouns are expressed analytically, e.g. ēk ō did “to each other (lit. one to other)”, ēk abāg did “with one another (lit. one with other)”.
The demonstrative pronouns ēn “this” and ān “that” form a pair in deixis; ēd tends to refer to content, while im is mostly restricted to fixed expressions such as im rōz “today” (lit. “this day”).
Relative pronouns, which are identical with interrogative pronouns except for ī, have developed to relative particles with the antecedent being facultatively resumed in the relative clause. Relative clauses with unspecific reference (so-called ‘free relatives’) display pronominal use, which suggests that it is actually the interrogative pronoun that is used for this clause type.
Examples
- personal pronouns: 1sg. man (archaic direct case: an), enclitic =m, 2sg. tō, enclitic =t, 3sg. ōy, enclitic =š, 1pl. amāh, enclitic =mān (archaic =n for pluralis majestatis), 2pl. ašmāh, enclitic =tān, 3pl. awēšān, enclitic =šān (archaic =š)
- reflexive pronouns for all persons: xwad (also as intensifier), xwēš (mostly possessive), xwēštan
- demonstrative pronouns: ān and ōy “that”, ēn and ēd and im “this”, awēšān “those”
- interrogative pronouns: kē “who”, kadām “which one”, čē “what”, kū “where”, čiyōn “how”, key “when”
- relative pronouns (mostly used as relativizers without pronominal value): generalized ī and kē, and the interrogative pronouns
- indefinite pronouns: and “so many”, čand “some”, was “many, much”, abārīg and any and did “other”, tis “something”, kas “someone”
- total pronouns: harw “all, every”, hamāg and (har)wisp “all”
- negative pronouns: ēč “any”
Border cases
Pronouns tend to appear in fixed expressions that can lexicalize as pronominal adverbs, cf. ēd rāy “because of this” or “therefor”, cf. the fused variant zīrā in New Persian from az ēd rāy. aziš as “from it” or “therefrom”.
PRON in other languages: [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [da] [de] [el] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [grc] [hbo] [hu] [hy] [hyw] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [kpv] [ky] [myv] [naq] [nci] [nmf] [no] [oge] [pal] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sla] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urj] [xcl] [xmf] [yue] [zh]