Classical Arithide pro-forms

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The pro-forms of Classical Arithide include pronouns, pro-verbs, pro-adjectives and pro-adverbs, each class of which substitutes for the part of speech in its name. Demonstrative pronouns are also listed below.

Pronouns

Like nouns, Classical Arithide pronouns decline for case, and sometimes number. Pronouns can be divided into two large groups: personal pronouns and impersonal pronouns. The former includes words like des "I" and kēa "oneself", as well as the distributive pronouns like "each" and "neither"; the latter is further subdivided into possessive pronouns ("This book is mine."), relative pronouns ("The car which..."), interrogative pronouns ("Who did this?"), and demonstrative pronouns ("This is good.").

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns in Classical Arithide number many more than the average European language. In the traditional grammar, there are two types of personal pronouns: the direct class, corresponding to the "I", "you", "we" etc. of Indo-European languages and including the reflexive pronoun, which directly refer to people by their grammatical argument in a sentence; the indirect class, which, as its name suggests, refers to people via descriptive terms much as royalty are referred to as "Your Majesty", and which tends to be honorific in nature.

All direct personal pronouns in Classical Arithide are irregularly declined, as in many languages. There are separate pronouns for each of the three persons and two numbers (and a distinction between the inclusive and exclusive "we"), as well as reflexive pronouns. They are listed and declined below:

1p. sg.
"me"
1p. pl. excl.
"we, not you"
1p. pl. incl.
"we + you"
2p. sg.
"you"
2p. pl.
"you"
3p. sg.
"he/she/it"1
3p. pl.
"they"
Nom. des rīs er his aus na kina
Top. dās rigās ergās hās vās nās kinās
Acc. dei (dege) rei (rege) ergē he(te) vete nede kinede
Gen.2 den, din- rin, rign- ern, ergn- hes, het- ves, vet- nes, net- kines, kinet-
Dat. dinai irige ergaí hinai ivine nizai kinizai
Loc.3 dēnou, dum irigum ergum hēnou, hum ivēnum nēzou, num kinum
Abl. dēdō irigō ergō hēdō ivēnō nēdō kinēdō
Ins. ditis irigis ergis hesis ivesis nesis kinesis
Voc. diā rīgā ērgiā vīdā nāi kināi
Ess./Con. di, de(g)- rī, ri(g)- erga, erg(e)- he, hi(n)- vī, vi(d)- ne, ni(z)- kine, kini(z)-

1

"It" here refers only to animate objects, such as animals and insects, or a gender-unspecified person such as a baby. For inanimate objects, see below.

2

The first form in each pair is used in contexts where case marking is not needed or wanted; the second form where it is, and takes the appropriate case ending of the first declension.

3

Where case forms occur in pairs, the first of each pair is literal in meaning, i.e. "on me, on my body" etc., while the second is idiomatic, i.e. "with regard to me, as for me" etc.

For inanimate objects, there were a separate set of pronouns. These were basically the pronominal stems of the appropriate person with first declension endings added.

2p. sg./pl.
"you"
3p. sg.
"it"
3p. pl.
"they"
Nom. hos nos kinos
Top. hou nou kinou
Acc. ho no kino
Gen. hin, hen- nin, nen- kinin, kinen-
Dat. hae nae kinae
Loc. hira nira kinira
Abl. hōn nōn kinōn
Ins. hois nois kinois
Voc. kinā
Ess./Con. - - -

The reflexive pronoun ("self", or, in compounds, "-self") has only two forms, the singular and plural, and each is declined below. Note that the full declension of the reflexive pronouns fell out of general use very early on in the language's history and only the earliest, or the most archaically or poetically written, texts document it—for all practical purposes, and from epistolary evidence it can be deduced, that a much reduced declension served for both singular and plural (using older forms to clarify ambiguity where necessary). That reduced declension is seen in the rightmost column:

refl. sg.
"oneself"
refl. pl.
"theirselves" etc.
reduced decl.
Nom. kēa agera
Top. kēs agerās -
Acc. ke(te) age(te) ke
Gen. kēs, kess- ages, agess- kes, kess-
Dat. kinai aginai ke
Loc. kēnou, kedum agedum kum
Abl. kēdō agedō
Ins. kitis agitis ke
Voc. kiā agiā -
Ess./Con. ki(-) agī(-) ke

Distributive pronouns

Possessive pronouns

Relative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Main article: Classical Arithide demonstratives
See also Classical Arithide determiners#Demonstrative determiners for more information


Pro-verbs

Pro-adjectives

Pro-adverbs

Pro-adverbs inflect just like adjectives and adverbs, with infixes for the comparative, superlative and other forms.