SamSkandinavisk pronouns
Personal pronouns
The SamSkandinavisk personal pronoun system is very similar to that of Danish, Norwegian-Bokmål and Swedish, and incidentally quite close to English. Pronouns inflect for person, number, and, in the third person singular, gender. Unlike English there is a separate third-person reflexive pronoun sig (himself, herself, itself, themselves). SamSka also keeps a distinct 2nd person singular du (you) and i (you plural), and objective forms of these. Reflexive forms are not used for the first and second person, mig for example can mean both me or myself.
Table of Personal pronouns
| Singular | Plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person | Nominative | Objective | Possessive: com./neut./pl. | Person | Nominative | Objective | Possessive: com./neut./pl. |
| 1st | jeg [jeɪ] | mig [meɪ] | min [miːn] / mitt [mɪtː] / mine [ˈmiːnə] | 1st | vi [viː] | oss [ɔsː] | vår [vɔːr] / vårt [vɔʈː] / våre [ˈvɔːrə] |
| 2nd | du [duː] | dig [deɪ] | din [diːn] / ditt [dɪtː] / dine [ˈdiːnə] | 2nd | i [iː] | eder [ˈeːdər, eːr] | eders [ˈeːdəʂ, eːʂ] |
| 3rd Masculine | han [hanː] | hanem [ˈhɑːnəm] / ham [hamː] | hans [hanːs] | 3rd | de [deː] | dem [deːm] | deres [ˈdeːrəs] |
| 3rd Feminine | hon [hɔnː] | henne [ˈhɛnːə] | hennes [ˈhɛnːəs] | ||||
| 3rd Common | den [dɛnː] | den [dɛnː] | dens [dɛnːs] | ||||
| 3rd Neuter | det [dɛ] | det [dɛ] | dets [dɛtːs, dɛsː] | ||||
| 3rd Impersonal | man [manː] | — | — | ||||
| (3rd Reflexive) | — | sig [seɪ] | sin [siːn] / sitt [sɪtː] / sine [ˈsiːnə] | (3rd Reflexive) | — | sig [seɪ] | sin [siːn] / sitt [sɪtː] / sine [ˈsiːnə] |
Some possessive pronouns (for example 1st singular) are inflected similarly to adjectives, agreeing in gender and number with the item possessed.
The distinction between du and i is intended to be purely one of number. Du is to address a single person and i to address two or more people. There is no particular level of formality associated with either pronoun. Unlike with German du or French tu, SamSka du can be used to address adult strangers of any social rank.
Den is the equivalent of it used for common gender nouns. It is used for nouns when the grammatical gender is common and they have no physical gender. This could include inanimate objects, abstract concepts and animals where the physical gender is not known or not relevant. For example a bok (book) would normally be referred to as den. But a hankatt (tomcat) might instead be referred to as han (he) because it has a known and relevant physical gender. Den may also be used as a gender neutral pronoun to talk about a person when the physical gender is not yet known or not considered relevant. This can be used in non-sexist language to avoid a preference for male or female.
The third person pronouns det, den and de also serve as demonstrative pronouns, roughly equivalent to English that and those, and as definite articles, equivalent to English the.
The reflexive pronoun is used when the object or possessive is identical to the grammatical subject of the sentence: han kysste sin hustru. "he kissed his (own) wife". han kysste hans hustru "he kissed his (somebody else's) wife"
Man the impersonal pronoun is used in a similar way to formal English "one", or more informally "you" or "they". It refers to no one in particular. It always uses the reflexive possessive for possessive (for logical reasons). It isn't normally used in the objective case, but constructions of man in the objective case can be done by using the passive form of verbs.