Singular: nominative accusative
1
st
person
mi –
I min –
me2
nd person
vi –
you vin –
you3
rd person
li –
he (for male beings)
lin –
him ŝi –
she (for
female beings)
ŝin –
her ĝi –
it ĝin –
itPlural
1
st
person
ni –
we nin –
us
2
nd person
vi –
you vin –
you3
rd person
ili
–
they ilin –
themN.B. Sex of the 3
rd person is expressed by
different words, not by suffixoid
in
(
amikino – she-friend) or
prefixoid
vir
(
virkato –
tom cat) as by nouns.
Like English, Esperanto uses the same pronoun
in the 2
nd person for both numbers. If it is necessary to distinguish
vouvoyer and tutoyer (
cidiri), it is possible
to use for the 2
nd person singular
ci (thou, fra: tu, deu: du).
There is also
reflexive pronoun
si.
Si is used instead of the normal 3
rd
person pronouns (
li,
ŝi,
ĝi,
ili)
when referring to the subject of the
sentence
[5]:
Paŭlo lavas sin. –
Paul
washes himself.Paŭlo lavas lin.
–
Paul washes him. (It means someone
else).
Ili lavas sin. –
They wash
themselves. The reflexive pronoun is not used for the 1
st and
2
nd person (
Mi lavas min. –
I wash myself).
Si can form accusative
but nominative can be used only as a prepositive nominative.
General subject
is expressed by the pronoun
oni.
Oni is vague and can stand for one or more
persons – predicative can be in singular (
Oni devas
ĉiam esti preta.M – It is necessary to be
ready all the time.) or in plural (
Oni estas maljustaj
koncerne ilin.M – People are not fair to
them.). Singular is preferred. The form
onin is possible, but not used.
The pronoun
ĝi should be used also when referring to a
human without specifying its sex. Some Esperanto speakers have proposed a new
pronoun
ri, reserving
ĝi for things and non-human beings.
However,
ri is used very rarely. Other forms
(
liŝi,
ŝili and
ŝli) were proposed too, but they are even
more rare. Some other Esperanto speakers would like to have pronoun for female
3
rd person plural – plural of
ŝi – they have proposed
iŝi (as analogy to the pair
li –
ili). This pronoun is also used only
rarely.
Possessive pronouns are formed from the personal pronouns by adding the
adjectival ending
a. Possessive pronouns are
declined as adjectives. The pronoun has to agree in number and case with the
thing(s) that are
possessed.
[6]mia
domo –
my housemiaj
domoj –
my housesMi vidas mian
domon. –
I see my house.Mi
vidas miajn domojn. –
I see my
houses.Li vidas sian domon. –
He sees his own house. (The house belongs to the person who sees
it.)
Li vidas lian domon. – He sees
his house. (The house belongs to some other person.)
It also is possible
to form possessive form of
oni –
onia, but I cannot find any interpretation for
it.
[5] There is also a prefix
sin which is synonymous to the prefix
mem (
self, own). However, it is better
to look at it as a separate prefix and not as the reflexive pronoun: (1) if it
were the reflexive, it would be in nominative – the accusative form is
used only because of the easier pronunciation; (2) it is used also for the first
and second person, in which case the form
mi,
ni or
vi
should be used.