Wena: Difference between revisions

The pronominal system of Wena is, like most other parts of the language, composed of transparent compounds. It contains three types of clusivity: exclusive, inclusive of third person, and inclusive of second person. The third person pronoun is generally glossed as DEF.E (definite entity) as it is used as a definite article in a lot of situations.

| na || wena || wena || wana  

| wa || wewa || wade || -  

| de || dwe / de (we) || - || -  

The distinction between ''wena'' "we" and ''wana'' "we" is that the latter includes any listeners whereas the former does not. In the second person, ''wewa'' is used to refer to a group with all members present and being addressed. ''Wede'' refers to a group whose members are not all present or being spoken to.

All the pronouns have distinct genitive forms equivalent to being preceded with ''ya''. For example, ''ya na'' is equivalent to ''nga'', with the former being more emphatic and the latter being more common. The forms are shown in the following table.

| nga || vyena || vyena || wona

| wo || vyewa || wode || -  

| zyi || zyi (we) || - || -

Note that ''zyi we'' is often pronounced as one syllable, losing the /i/. This is sometimes indicated in writing as ''zy'we''.

Any of the pronouns may be followed by any of the kinds of modifiers that any other noun can. Appositional modifiers are quite frequent. ''Wa da'' is used as an honorific when speaking to an important man. When speaking to a chief, however, one should avoid the above listed pronouns entirely and refer to him simply with the word ''mwada'' 'chief'. People addressing the chief humble themselves by referring to themselves as ''na di''.

In the third person, when talking about a number of people or things, modifiers are frequently used to disambiguate between referents that would otherwise all be referred to as ''de''. Some commonly used phrases are ''de la'' 'the woman', ''de hu'' 'the man', ''de ngo'' 'the person', ''de nu'' 'the thing'. These are also very commonly used without ''de'', as definiteness tends not to be marked explicitly except through the use of the genitive form ''zyi''.