Tigrinya Grammar - Pronouns - Personal Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

In most languages, there is a small number of basic distinctions of person, number, and often gender that play a role within the grammar of the language. Tigrinya and English are such languages. We see these distinctions within the basic set of independent personal pronouns, for example, English I, Tigrinya ኣነ anä; English she, Tigrinya ንሳ nǝssa. In Tigrinya, as in other Semitic languages, the same distinctions appear in three other places within the grammar of the languages as well.

Subject–verb agreement

All Tigrinya verbs agree with their subjects; that is, the person, number, and (second and third person) gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes or prefixes on the verb. Because the affixes that signal subject agreement vary greatly with the particular verb tense/aspect/mood, they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation.

Object pronoun suffixes

Tigrinya verbs often have additional morphology that indicates the person, number, and (second and third person) gender of the object of the verb.

ንኣልማዝ	ርእየያ
nǝ’almaz	rǝ’yä-yya
Almaz-ACC	I-saw-her
'I saw Almaz'

While suffixes such as -yya in this example are sometimes described as signaling object agreement, analogous to subject agreement, they are more often thought of as object pronoun suffixes because, unlike the markers of subject agreement, they do not vary significantly with the tense/aspect/mood of the verb. For arguments of the verb other than the subject or the object, a separate set of related suffixes have a dative, benefactive, adversative, instrumental, or locative meaning ('to', 'for', 'against', 'with', 'by', 'at').

ንኣልማዝ	ማዕጾ	ኸፊተላ
nǝ’almaz	ma‘s'o	xäfitä-lla
for-Almaz	door	I-opened-for-her
'I opened the door for Almaz'

Suffixes such as -lla in this example will be referred to in this article as prepositional object pronoun suffixes because they correspond to prepositional phrases such as 'for her', to distinguish them from the direct object pronoun suffixes such as -yya 'her'.

Possessive suffixes

Tigrinya has a further set of morphemes that are suffixed to either nouns or prepositions. These signal possession on a noun and prepositional object on a preposition. They will be referred to as possessive suffixes.

• ገዛ gäza 'house', ገዛይ gäza-y 'my house', ገዛኣ gäza-’a 'her house'
• ብዛዕባ bǝza‘ba 'about', ብዛዕባይ bǝza‘ba-y 'about me', ብዛዕብኣ bǝza‘bǝ-’a 'about her'

In each of these four aspects of the grammar, independent pronouns, subject–verb agreement, object-pronoun suffixes, and possessive suffixes, Tigrinya distinguishes ten combinations of person, number, and gender. For first person, there is a two-way distinction between singular ('I') and plural ('we'), whereas for second and third persons, there is a four-way distinction for the four combinations of singular and plural number and masculine and feminine gender ('you m. sg.', 'you f. sg.', 'you m. pl.', 'you f. pl.', 'he', 'she', 'they m.', 'they f.').

Like other Semitic languages, Tigrinya is a pro-drop language. That is, neutral sentences, in which no element is emphasized, normally use the verb conjugation rather than independent pronouns to indicate the subject, and incorporates the object pronoun into the verb: ኤርትራዋይ እዩ ’erǝtraway ’ǝyyu 'he's Eritrean,' ዓዲመያ ‘addimäyya 'I invited her'. The Tigrinya words that translate directly as 'he' and 'I' do not appear in these sentences, while the word 'her' is indicated by the 'a' at the end of the verb (thus, the person, number, and (second or third person) gender of the subject and object are all marked by affixes on the verb). When the subject in such sentences is emphasized, an independent pronoun is used: ንሱ ኤርትራዋይ እዩ nǝssu ’erǝtraway ̈’ǝyyu 'he's Eritrean,' ኣነ ዓዲመያ anǝ ‘addimäyya 'I invited her'. When the object is emphasized, instead of an independent pronoun, the accusative marker nǝ- is used with the appropriate possessive suffix: ንኣኣ ዓዲመያ nǝ’a’a ‘addimäyya 'I invited her'.

The table below shows alternatives for many of the forms. In each case, the choice depends on what precedes the form in question. For the possessive suffixes, the form depends on whether the noun or preposition ends in a vowel or a consonant, for example, ከልበይ kälb-äy 'my dog', ኣዶይ ’addo-y 'my mother'. For the object pronoun suffixes, for most of the forms there is a "light" (non-geminated) and a "heavy" (geminated) variant, a pattern also found in a number of other Ethiopian Semitic languages, including Tigre and the Western Gurage languages. The choice of which variant to use is somewhat complicated; some examples are given in the verb section.

Within second and third person, there is a set of additional "polite" independent pronouns, for reference to people that the speaker wishes to show respect towards. This usage is an example of the so-called T-V distinction that is made in many languages. The polite pronouns in Tigrinya are just the plural independent pronouns without -xat- or -at: ንስኹም nǝssǝxum 'you m. pol.', ንስኽን nǝssǝxǝn 'you f. pol.', ንሶም nǝssom 'he pol.', ንሰን nǝssän 'she pol.'. Although these forms are most often singular semantically — they refer to one person — they correspond to second or third person plural elsewhere in the grammar, as is common in other T-V systems.

For second person, there is also a set of independent vocative pronouns, used to call the addressee. These are ኣታ atta (m. sg.), ኣቲ atti (f. sg.), ኣቱም attum (m. pl.), ኣተን attän.

For possessive pronouns ('mine', 'yours', etc.), Tigrinya adds the possessive suffixes to nat- (from the preposition nay 'of'): ናተይ natäy 'mine', ናትካ natka 'yours m. sg.', ናትኪ natki 'yours f. sg.', ናታ nata 'hers', etc.